Decision report 201003701

Summary
Mr C was a postgraduate student. He complained that the university failed to give him the appropriate quantity of supervision during his postgraduate course.

From looking at the evidence provided by Mr C and the university, we found that there was no specific standard for the quantity of supervision. The university's code of practice for postgraduate research courses stated that it was the responsibility of students to maintain regular contact with their supervisory team. The university provided sufficient evidence that Mr C was seen on a regular basis by his principal supervisor and, when necessary, his second supervisor. Therefore, we did not uphold Mr C's complaint.

Mr C also complained that the university did not deal with his complaint in line with their procedure, because they did not have a meeting with either him or his student union representative. Mr C also said that he did not have a student union representative throughout the time he made his complaint. We found from looking at the evidence, that Mr C had a named representative from the student union at both formal stages of his complaint. We also found that under the university’s complaints procedure, the university's investigator was not required to meet with a complainant, although a meeting would normally take place at stage 1 of the procedure. We asked the university to remind their investigators of this, and suggested that it might be helpful if their investigators explained to complainants why there was no meeting on this occasion when they did not take place. Overall, there was no evidence that the university had not dealt with Mr C's complaint in line with their procedure and, therefore, we did not uphold his complaint.