Higher Education: Appeals

(asked on 23rd September 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of enabling students to appeal against academic judgment within the appeal process for students at universities, alongside (a) exceptional circumstances and (b) procedural irregularity.


Answered by
Michelle Donelan Portrait
Michelle Donelan
Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
This question was answered on 18th October 2021

Office for Students (OfS) registered providers are independent and autonomous organisations. However, OfS registration conditions require every provider to have fair and transparent procedures for handling academic complaints and appeals. This is to ensure that students are given the opportunity to seek clarification of an assessment or an examination board decision.

In addition, it is an OfS registration condition that all providers co-operate with the requirements of the student complaints scheme run by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA), and that they make students aware of their ability to use the scheme.

The OIA is independent of government and has a Good Practice Framework for higher education providers, including information relating to the handling of academic appeals. This is available here: https://www.oiahe.org.uk/resources-and-publications/good-practice-framework/handling-complaints-and-academic-appeals/the-academic-appeals-process.

The OIA Good Practice Framework sets out that the provider should clearly state the scope of the academic appeals process and the grounds on which an academic appeal may be lodged.

The OIA is precluded, by primary legislation, from considering complaints related to academic judgement on the grounds that appeals that relate to matters such as marks awarded, or the classifications of degrees, require the opinion of an academic expert. However, the OIA can consider the provider’s policies and procedures which may have led to that judgement and whether they are fair and reasonable under a given set of circumstances.

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