1. When Universities
Challenge the Student
Experience
The Student Advocates Perspective

2. Overview
 What is student rights/advocacy?
 Role of advocates
 Which students seek advocacy?
 Emerging issues from student rights perspective
 When policy lets student and staff down
 Duty of Care
 Consumer satisfaction, expectations and rights

3. It’s all in the introduction
“As a Student Rights Officer/Student Advocate:
 I’m independent – employed by your student
association. This allows me to give support and advice
in the best interests of the student only, I have no
responsibility to the university
 Confidential – I have no shared access to records with
your university”

4. Why students seek advocacy

5. Why students seek advocacy
 Academic Progress:
 Early intervention (Early Warning Letters)
 Notices of Referral and Hearing – student responses
 Attending Academic Progress Hearings
 Appeals if excluded due to failure to make acceptable academic
progress
 Complaints/grievances
 Discipline – general misconduct, academic misconduct
(plagiarism, examination cheating)
 Results disputes
 General support – “I don’t know what to do”

6. Which students come for
advocacy
 Students struggling to identify appropriate action to
deal with a situation that they are facing – i.e.. Who to
speak to first, what to do if not satisfied with response
 Students identified for behaviour management
interventions
 Students at risk of suspension or exclusion for failure to
make academic progress or due to discipline issues
 ‘I want to make a complaint’

7. Latest trends
 University staff overstretched – Industrial action
 APC processes previously administrated efficiently and with due care are now
under-resourced with significant impact to student outcomes
 Reduced access to feedback on results for students and reduced willingness
of staff to provide feedback
 Students stating that placements are not well coordinated and don’t feel
adequately supported or prepared to go into the workforce
 Removal of Student Unions – can student advocacy still be independent
 International students with inadequate English skills level
 Reduced access to on-campus counseling services
 Reduced funding to Student Unions

8. When policies and procedures let students and
staff down
 Excessively limited appeal opportunities
 Where students are not provided with adequate
support to navigate University processes
Case Study – Rose
 Low SES students – too much rhetoric, not enough
substance
Case study: Kate

9. Duty of Care
“the legal obligation to safeguard others from harm while
they are in your care, using your services, or exposed to
your activities”, www.colinsdictionary.com
Where does this responsibility begin and end?
Case study: Samantha
Case study: Kevin

10. Customer Satisfaction
“Universities are increasingly regarded as businesses and, like all other businesses
that supply goods and services to 'consumers', it is no surprise that legislation such as
the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) may apply to many of their activities…..
The chief consumer guarantees in relation to services are as follows:
 services supplied ... to a consumer will be rendered with due care and skill;
 services supplied ... to a consumer will be reasonably fit for purpose if the
consumer, expressly or impliedly, makes known to the supplier the particular
purpose for acquiring the services;
 services (or products resulting from the services) … to a consumer will achieve a
result that the consumer makes known, expressly or impliedly…”
Source: The Australian Consumer Law – another compliance obligation for
universities?, http://www.minterellison.com/publications/australian-consumer-law-
another-compliance-obligation-for-universities-HEF20130507/

11. Conclusion
 Increasing numbers of low SES students entering, with
knowledge that additional support will be required.
 Is accessible access to counselling on campus an
expendable service? At what cost to the student/consumer?
 Moving into corporate/consumer model. Trying to do this
well, however there are increasing constraints of funding,
staff expectations and consumer expectations.
 Student rights assist students with university grievance
process around application of university policy and
procedures. What happens when the student is not happy
with the product?