Students may get ombudsman

Students have been campaigning for changes

Calls for a higher education ombudsman have received government backing.

Education Minister Baroness Blackstone has welcomed the proposals in a code of practice from the watchdog Quality Assurance Agency, being considered by university chiefs.

She said solutions to the "very important issue" of the reform of the student complaints procedure were needed quickly.

The introduction of an ombudsman would provide an "independent, permanent, central arbiter and ensure consistency", she said.

Under the proposals, an ombudsman would look at the quality of lectures or disputes over assessment.

But it is not clear whether such a figure would cover admissions disputes, which might have offered an extra right of appeal to a student such as Laura Spence, rejected from the University of Oxford but offered a scholarship to Harvard.

The Queen

At present, universities have their own internal processes for complaints from staff and students - which student unions want to see brought under external supervision.

In some universities the only external involvement in settling disputes is the "board of visitors", which in universities with royal charters can mean in theory that the Queen is the final court of appeal.

Baroness Blackstone was speaking at a one-day conference, hosted by the Quality Assurance Agency on Tuesday.

The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP), which represents the heads of universities, has its own working group considering independent review panels for settling disputes.

Consumers

Baroness Blackstone said: "Universities and colleges, in line with all public institutions, should treat complaints fairly, quickly and effectively - both to give a fair deal to students and also to improve quality.

"It is time for a modern, open, transparent system.

"I would like the CVCP and the other representative bodies to make recommendations by the end of the year.

"This is an excellent opportunity to develop a student complaints system which empowers your students, and to benefit from their contribution as critical consumers."

Students 'silenced'

A spokesman for the National Union of Students said: "NUS has been actively campaigning to improve internal university complaints procedures and for the creation of a Parliamentary ombudsman to oversee the fairness of external redress.

"Despite our ongoing opposition to tuition fees, students are now paying consumers and they deserve the right to have their complaints about poor service acted upon."

Complaints students might have could be about inadequate facilities - such as library, computing or photocopying, seriously poor teaching, or the mis-marketing of courses.

"We are not talking about 'My lecturer gave me a bad grade because he doesn't like me' - we're not encouraging students to complain about individual lecturers, and we're not saying all complaints made by students are legitimate.

"But at the moment students are being silenced. What is really significant for us is that often universities try to push a complaint down, squash it through internal procedures.

"We need a person who is independent and can force universities to accept liability.

"If you buy a jumper with a hole in it you can take it back to the shop. You can't take back three years of your life."