UK Demands Return to In-Person Teaching as Complaints Against Universities Soar to Record High

Lucas Strange, 22, continues to study for his degree in physics via online learning sessions from his room in Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge, England, on Jan. 29, 2021. Leon Neal/Getty Images

The British government has demanded that all universities return to pre-pandemic levels of face-to-face teaching, as it emerged that complaints about university courses soared to the highest level on record last year.

The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) said it received 2,763 complaints from students in 2021, an increase of 6 percent on 2020 levels and once again the highest ever number.

In a new report, the OIA said “some students found that they weren’t getting the learning experiences that they reasonably expected” and that they had been affected by the “cumulative impact of the pandemic and industrial action.”

It also found that some students had struggled with technology, “especially in online timed exams,” with some finding it difficult to make the technology work at all, while for others poor typing skills had affected their performance.

Complaints that related partly to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic accounted for 37 percent of complaints received, compared with 12 percent in 2020.

Michelle Donelan, UK minister for higher and further education, addresses delegates during the Conservative Party Spring Conference, in Blackpool, northwest England, on March 18, 2022. Paul Ellis /AFP via Getty Images

Writing for The Telegraph, Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, said, “Saving money, bonkers zero-COVID strategies, or sheer convenience are not valid reasons to cut face-to-face teaching.”

She said she had been “personally calling” university leaders on the lack of face-to-face teaching despite the relaxation and subsequent removal of COVID-19 restrictions.

While “the majority of students are now receiving a comparable amount of face-to-face teaching to before the pandemic,” she said, “a stubborn minority of universities have put themselves on an entirely different track to the rest of us.”

Some universities have been “producing increasingly vague explanations on why they will not return to the full in-person teaching experience their students deserve,” she said.

Donelan said she had written to universities to make clear that “they need to be honest about how courses will be taught” and whether or not the teaching is face-to-face.

She said she “will not hesitate” to ask the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate any universities that are “failing in their duty to be clear.”

She said she had also told the Office for Students to put “boots on the ground” and investigate universities where there are concerns over the face-to-face provision being given.

“Vice chancellors should be in no doubt that if investigated, their universities could face severe consequences, including fines,” she wrote.

PA Media contributed to this report.