The Student Room Group

Would British students who complained to OIA have been better off Studying Abroad?

In a recent discussion with other students and former students, we found that there is significant dissatisfaction within the UK Higher Education System, particularly with regard to certain groups of students. We have questioned whether some students would find it more beneficial in the long run to study abroad. Does anyone in this group:

Have experience of having undertaken a course of HE study in another country and what were the benefits and/or pitfalls of studying there, in your experience?

What made you choose to study abroad in the first place, and what influence did the particular place, country, or specific institution have on your choice?

Did you experience the complaints system over there and under what circumstances?

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Original post by Megajules
In a recent discussion with other students and former students, we found that there is significant dissatisfaction within the UK Higher Education System, particularly with regard to certain groups of students. We have questioned whether some students would find it more beneficial in the long run to study abroad. Does anyone in this group:

Have experience of having undertaken a course of HE study in another country and what were the benefits and/or pitfalls of studying there, in your experience?

What made you choose to study abroad in the first place, and what influence did the particular place, country, or specific institution have on your choice?

Did you experience the complaints system over there and under what circumstances?



Which group(s) are we talking about?
Reply 2
Groups who have been so dissatisfied that they have made formal complaints about some aspect of their university experience to their universities, and may have gone on to complain (or have considered complaining) to the OIA.
Reply 3
...but if you have a different experience that you would like to share, which is related, we'd still like to hear it!
Reply 4
Original post by Megajules
Groups who have been so dissatisfied that they have made formal complaints about some aspect of their university experience to their universities, and may have gone on to complain (or have considered complaining) to the OIA.

You might want to state what OIA stands for, if you want this thread to turn up in searches done by the people you're looking to talk to.
Reply 5
Good Idea, Ronove! The OIA is the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education. They are the official external complaints adjudicator for students who have exhausted any university's complaints system.
Reply 6
You can find them here: http://oiahe.org.uk/ They are the people who deliberately and officially screw you over while pretending to sort out any complaint that you make about a university. :smile:
Reply 7
...I'm really surprised that you don't know about them! Shouldn't ALL students know about them? It is after all the same as members of the general public not knowing about their ability to complain to, say, the police, or their MP.
Reply 8
Original post by Megajules
...I'm really surprised that you don't know about them! Shouldn't ALL students know about them? It is after all the same as members of the general public not knowing about their ability to complain to, say, the police, or their MP.


She never said she didn't. She was trying to help you by suggesting you make the thread easier to find in search results.

But with your attitude, you don't deserve help.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 9
Excuse me?????? My attitude????? There is something wrong with my attitude?????? And you know what that is??? Do please enlighten me.
Reply 10
Oh, and while you are about enlightening me, you might explain the complete lack of equality on this site which causes you to have to speak on her behalf too!:cool:
Reply 11
Original post by Megajules
Excuse me?????? My attitude????? There is something wrong with my attitude?????? And you know what that is??? Do please enlighten me.


Read your posts back if you're unsure. This one just further proves my point.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 12
Juno, I don't know what you are on, but I suggest you give it a rest. There is nothing wrong with my posts above, FACT! The problem here is that you have taken this thread off-topic for an argument. That's fine, there are trolls everywhere...but I'm not about to feed this one, so if you have nothing constructive to say that is on topic, please go and post on someone else's thread, because I am about to complain about your interference if it continues.
Original post by Megajules
You can find them here: http://oiahe.org.uk/ They are the people who deliberately and officially screw you over while pretending to sort out any complaint that you make about a university. :smile:


Do they?

I've found them to be rather lenient on a lot of cases recently, much to universities' dissatisfaction.

What would you change about it?
Reply 14
Hi Dark White

I am really interested in your personal experience of the OIA, particularly what they have done for you that is "lenient". (I also find that a strange word to use when talking about a complaints system. Can you say for instance that your solicitor was lenient with you in winning you a small sum of compensation? - do you see what I mean about the oddity?)

But anyway, I digress. What I'd really like is for you to tell me your personal story about your dealings with the OIA, and why you think that what they did was lenient. That would be great, thanks!
Reply 15
Original post by arson_fire
I know you have a vendetta against them, but not everybody has had negative experiences of using them, and continually bashing them and telling people who are making complaints that they have no hope is pretty out of order IMHO.
I do appreciate that if you have no experience of them that you might think that arson_fire, but I DO have the experience, and every single person who I am in touch with who has also had the experience are in full agreement with me. Now, IMHO, I believe that ALL students should know about them, know what they are supposed to do, and know the percentage of times in which they succeed in doing what they are supposed to do. That percentage is exceedingly low!

Something that I do find extremely odd, that you might be able to clear up for me is this. Out of all the hundreds and thousands of threads on this site, you seem to ALWAYS manage to find me and strongly disagree with anything I say. I'm interested why that is. Do you have connections to the OIA? Do you work for a university? Or do you just have a vendetta against my posts in particular? I don't mind which, but I am interested to know.
Reply 16
Original post by Megajules
...I'm really surprised that you don't know about them! Shouldn't ALL students know about them? It is after all the same as members of the general public not knowing about their ability to complain to, say, the police, or their MP.



Original post by Megajules
Oh, and while you are about enlightening me, you might explain the complete lack of equality on this site which causes you to have to speak on her behalf too!:cool:

I don't consider Juno pointing out that I might well have known who they were to be an affront to my rights as a forum user.

However as it happens, I had never heard of them before you started this thread about them. I never heard them mentioned while at university and I doubt that any of the people I went to university with will have heard of them either, unless they felt so aggrieved by some part of the university experience that they decided to look into their options for complaint outside the university. I could perhaps have made use of them if I had known they existed.
Reply 17
Thanks for your pertinent reply, Ronove. It should come as no surprise that I too had not heard of them until it became necessary that I should learn of them, because I had exhausted the internal complaints process of my university. (I also had no experience or knowledge of those processes either until I became embroiled in them.)

So, what actually happens is this:

You find yourself in a position where you have a complaint against a university. You make your complaint, and you are pointed to their complaints forms. They usually have two levels, a Stage 1 complaint, and a Stage 2 complaint. When you have exhausted those, you have completed the university's internal procedures, and they are bound by law to issue you with a "Completion of Procedures" form. At this point, the only (affordable) place to turn to is the OIA. They are funded by the university, they are not impartial, and even if you were one of the very low percentage of cases that succeed, you will not recover your loss. They NEVER put a student back into the position that student was in prior to the cause of the complaint happening. (No matter what you read on their website.). In fact, they destroy lives, by dragging out complaints for sometimes well over a year, and then making a finding that they could, considering what work they have actually covered, make a finding in about two weeks.

If you are still at university, you would do well to familiarise yourself with this system. None of the people who I know, who ultimately had cause to use them could have possibly foreseen the circumstances that they ended up in which caused them to seek help.

As for the earlier suggestions that I am carrying out a vendetta, you should know that the unlawful actions of my own university have cost me dearly financially and otherwise. I am at least £100,000 down in lost earnings as a result of their malevolence, and my career is pretty much ended before it began, in spite of my having had a majorly successful internship with a very well known coca cola sized enterprise...so yes, I AM rather dissatisfied with them!

I don't need to be here. I can sue them for breach of contract and just walk away. However, I just don't want other students to go through what I have had to go through, and what I know that others have also gone through.
Reply 18
Okay arson_fire you have your doubts about me and my motives. So, if your doubts are genuine, then you will have absolutely no problem with dealing with those doubts here and now.

So first of all, let's deal with your claim that "there is one reason why you want to raise awareness but I can`t mention it on here but be both know what it is". I frankly have no idea what you are talking about. I don't think that you do either, because if you did, you would find a way to say it, on here or otherwise. My Twitter identity is Megajules01. If you are genuine, go there, tell me what you mean, and I will come back here and answer you truthfully about what you are claiming.

Secondly, let's deal with your doubts about me having a genuine case that you have previously cast severe doubts over on here. What part of my case, in which I was offered compensation by the university (a paltry amount), do you not find genuine? Lets get it all out on here in this thread so that we don't have to do this over again. My case is genuine and solid. So, if you aren't seeing that, you are missing some information...let me help you out!

Thirdly, how do you know that I have not taken someone's advice? And even if I hadn't why should that bother you so much, if you don't know who I am, who they are, and you have no personal interest in my personal affairs?

Let me put you out of your misery, I am currently in talks with a solicitor with regard to my claim against the university. That is as much as I am at liberty to say to you right now about that aspect of this.
Reply 19
Original post by arson_fire
I`ve never claimed the OIA is perfect, but i don`t think it`s acceptable to trawl this website looking for vulnerable students to recruit.


I already have the degree! It took the university one week to see that they had made a terrible mistake and then they spent the next three years desperately covering it up! I graduated with my cohort. In 2009, the University offered me £1000 for having defamed me across the university, and claimed that my work was too good for me and was purchased. I had in fact been so good prior to that, that I had successfully won a work placement with IBM at DVLA on one of the biggest Government projects in the country at the time, for which I was required to be security cleared. See, I don't need to do fantasy, I really have signed the official secrets act declaration! :cool: So you see, that is another part of my story that you have fantasised into something that it isn't...which brings me neatly to the bit about my doctor:

You are saying here " I don`t for one minute believe that the university malevolently bribed your doctor to change your medical records to suit them." Sorry, but I haven't actually said that! You and your fertile imagination have taken one and one and made about twenty seven...wrong answer! There's no wonder that my account reads like a conspiracy theory! I bet in your head, taking the rubbish out to the bin is an adventure!

In fact the alterations on my medical record are real, and were the subject of a complaint that I made to the General Medical Council, who, surprise, surprise, were as useless as the OIA. They told me that while they believed me, they were not going to take it any further unless they had other complaints from other people, because it was not serious enough. I have since been without a doctor by choice, because I am not prepared to use that service with my personal sensitive data in it's current damaging state. It has been that way since 2010.

Now let's look at your experience. You have been asked to share your personal experience of the OIA, but you can't because you don't have one, do you! That is why you have to come on here and do as you are told by those who want to stop me speaking out...go on, prove me wrong! Because lets face it, the last post that you have just made actually sidestepped (again) everything that I asked you.

As for my site reading like a conspiracy theory, you clearly only read the background (which I will concede would be unbelievable to me, if it hadn''t actually happened to me!). However, what you don't say here is that the background that I give is backed up with documentation which proves my case. You obviously missed that documentation, since you haven't mentioned it at all ...or were you just too lazy to look at it? Either way, you failed as a researcher, and you will fail as an agent of attrition, whether that agency is by accident or design.

Now, when can I expect you to go to my Twitter account to explain your innuendo?

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