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OfS chair tells committee he is ‘positive’ universities doing all they can on online learning
Students have been told by England’s regulator to complain to the Office for the Independent Adjudicator or escalate their problems to court if they are not satisfied with their online classes.
In an online meeting of the House of Commons education committee on 18 May, Office for Students chair Michael Barber said everyone should have “a very positive frame of mind” that universities are “going to do everything they can” to make sure that students “get the learning and teaching that they need” online.
But he added that while students “should be expected to pay [full fees] as they have”, if individuals feel their experience has not been good enough, students have the right to “take it up through the adjudicator and/or through a court of law”.
Asked by committee chair and Conservative MP Robert Halfon what students should do if they are not satisfied, Barber said: “They should complain…to the Office for the Independent Adjudicator, which is the correct place to take a complaint, and ultimately to a court of law if they want to.”
Universities have had to rapidly move their teaching online as the coronavirus pandemic has forced campuses to close to students. A significant drop in the number of international students enrolling on courses at UK universities in September is widely anticipated, while many expect domestic student numbers to also decrease as students defer.
Barber said the “scale of the challenges” will not be apparent until clearing takes place in August and he urged universities to raise financial worries early on. “[August] is when universities will be really clear what the picture is financially for them, and we are saying to them in the meantime, if you think you might be facing difficulties, come to us early and we’ll start talking that through, and we’ll look at it on a case-by-case basis,” he said.
Barber also said the OfS was reviewing new reportable events raised by universities every day, some about the quality of teaching. Requirements to report events such as breaches to student protection plans and changes to governance have been suspended during the pandemic, and instead universities must report short-term threats to their financial sustainability.
Barber said there had been a few cases where the regulator had contacted a university and “intervened briefly, to correct something or find out if what we’ve heard is correct”. Of course, the challenges are widespread but I do think universities are working very hard at this and making some progress,” he added.
On the OfS’s consultation on a temporary condition of registration, Barber described the proposed regulation as a “generosity of spirit condition”. He said, “where universities think not just about their own interests but the sector more broadly, they won’t fall foul of it,” adding that the OfS wants to “shepherd the university sector through this very difficult time”.
Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of the OfS, told the committee the proposed condition of registration—which would apply for 2020-21 unless extended—was “the sort of intervention we need”. “What we are doing here is trying to ensure that the admissions process this summer is as smooth and stable as is possible,” she said.
Dandridge also assured Labour MP and committee member Apsana Begum that the OfS was monitoring universities “on a weekly basis if not more frequently” to avoid a situation where “students find that the university or college they were planning to go to is in real financial difficulty.”