Recommendation 3

Students have a right to seek a refund or to repeat part of their course if the service provided by their university is substandard, but the exact circumstances in which students should expect to receive a refund or be able to repeat part of their course are not clear. Furthermore, given the scale of the disruption that has been caused by Covid-19—in addition to the strikes earlier in the year—and the numbers of students who may feel they are entitled to some form of reimbursement, it is not acceptable to expect individual students to seek satisfaction through existing complaints procedures or the courts. A new process needs to be put in place to consider complaints arising from Covid-19, and other out-of-the-ordinary events that affect the courses of large numbers of students, including large-scale strikes. The Government should work with the Office for Students and Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education to produce guidance on the circumstances in which university students are likely to be entitled to seek a refund or to repeat part of their course, and to establish a new system which enables all students to easily seek a full or partial refund of their tuition fees, or to repeat part of their course, based on an independent and objective assessment of the quality of education they have received over the academic year.