Student guide to industrial action

As a student, you have a contract with your university or college. This means you are protected by consumer protection law, and that your university or college must continue to offer the service they have promised you, even during periods of industrial action.

Universities and colleges registered with us must also continue to comply with our conditions of registration, meaning they must maintain the quality and standards of their courses and protect students’ interests.

They should also meet our expectations to minimise disruption to your studies. Among other factors, this covers the following:

1. Contracts that limit liability to students

Where their staff are in a period of industrial action, universities and colleges should not rely on limitations in student contracts to justify not delivering services.  

They should remove these clauses to comply with consumer protection law.

If a university or college makes any changes to its contracts with students, it should inform its current and prospective students.

2. Contingency plans

Institutions should also develop effective contingency plans.

Plans should be:

• actionable
• timely
• consider all students’ needs
• safeguard the credibility and integrity of qualifications awarded during periods of disruption.

3. Delivering contingency plans

When they deliver these contingency plans, universities and colleges should prioritise delivering education.

In the first place they should avoid any impact on students. Where they cannot do this, they should deliver education with as few changes as possible.

Where this is not possible, they should offer any missed or significantly disrupted teaching, assessment, or other promised aspects of students’ experience at a later date.

4. Fair compensation

Institutions should pay students fair compensation where contingency plans fail to deliver teaching, assessment, or other promised aspects of a students’ experience or to recognise the difficulties students have experienced.

This is a non-exhaustive list of circumstances in which universities or colleges should offer compensation:

• missed teaching that has not been repeated or replaced in a timely manner
• where assessment marking or feedback is materially delayed and this has a significant impact on the student's experience
• where decisions or awarded qualifications are materially delayed and this has an impact, including for visa applications, job offers and further study.

5. Clear communications

Universities and colleges should communicate clearly with students and make sure they offer timely support so that students are not left to navigate disruptions alone.

This should include transparent and accessible information about rescheduled teaching or assessment, or refunds and compensation.

Universities and colleges should proactively identify students who are eligible for compensation so that students do not need to submit claims themselves.  

Institutions should also make students aware that accepting a refund or compensation payment does not normally limit a student’s right to use the university or college’s internal complaints process.

They should also tell students about their right to escalate complaints or issues to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, which offers an independent and impartial review process that is free for students to use.

6. Reporting industrial action

Universities and colleges should also report any industrial action to the Office for Students in line with our regulatory requirements.