Student Grievances Research Articles

Unpacking Challenges within South African Institutions of Higher Learning in Addressing Student Grievances: A Literature Review

The persistent episodes of violence have been a thorn in the flesh of many South African institutions of higher learning. This predicament has tarnished the reputation of these institutions and compromised the overall quality of education provided. Employing a qualitative narrative literature review as the methodology and the theory of anomie, this paper examines and delineates the challenges confronted by higher learning institutions in addressing student grievances. The findings reveal many factors motivating student grievances and subsequent campus protests. These factors encompass administrative and managerial deficiencies in handling student grievances, inadequacies in managing student financial challenges, distorted perceptions among students regarding their rights and responsibilities, and substandard student accommodation and learning facilities. The discourse presented herein aspires to influence a transformation in the operational frameworks of higher learning institutions. The researchers envisage that their insights will diminish instances of violence and catalyse policy shifts to mitigate student exclusion.

Grievance Management System in PHP

The college grievance system project outlined in these abstract aims to streamlined and improve the process through the student can raise concerns and complaint within the academic community. Recognizing the importance of addressing student grievance promptly and fairly. Project seeks to design and implement effective an accessibility system that enhance the overall student experience.

Enhancing Learning Environments and Robust solution on “Student Grievance System”

Abstract - A well-structured student grievance system is essential for addressing student concerns, resolving disputes, and enhancing overall institutional quality. This study delves into the key components, benefits, challenges, and best practices associated with implementing an effective student grievance system. The significance of a robust grievance system in educational institutions has gained prominence due to the increased focus on student rights and the evolving dynamics of higher education. Addressing student grievances in a fair and efficient manner is not only a legal requirement but also a moral and ethical imperative for educational institutions committed to providing a supportive and inclusive learning environment.

A Survey on Student Grievance Redressal System

Abstract: Student satisfaction is a major concern throughout the institute. However, many times students cannot express their concerns. That eventually results in student dissatisfaction. Hence, to solve this problem a student grievance cell system is useful and it deals with student issues and grievances. The student can lodge their complaints through this system which will be redressed by the institute. The student grievance cell is where students can make a complaint without fear of accomplishment and discrimination and ask for help if there is any problem. A student grievance cell is a group of people who are there to help students struggling academically and emotionally. Students can approach the cell to express their concerns regarding academic matters ,health services, libraries, and other services. It also provides support and resources to students so they can talk about their issues. The student grievance cell will also focus on harassment issues, creating a protective environment for students. The student grievance redressal system is designed to provide an easy-to-use interface for students to register their complaints and track their progress. The system is equipped with features such as notifications, reporting, and analysis to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the grievance redressal process. The system is designed to be user-friendly, making it easy for students to navigate and access all the necessary information. One of the key features of the system is the ability to track and monitor the progress of each complaint.This helps to ensure that all complaints are addressed in a timely and efficient manner, and that students are kept informed of the progress of complaint slain. The system is also equipped with reporting and analysis tools to help university administrators understand the nature and frequency of complaints and make informed decisions to improve the educational experience for students

Reactions of Students Towards Class Cancellation, Class Rescheduling, Inadequate Classes and Classes for Less Than Designated Duration in Dhaka University

A serious departure from the norm in taking classes has been a regular phenomenon in the University of Dhaka in recent years. The present study aimed to investigate perceptions, reactions, and grievances of students towards class cancellation, class rescheduling, inadequate classes, and classes for less than duration at the University of Dhaka. Data were collected online from 522 students (51.5% male and 48.5% female, mean age = 21.74 years) of the university using a mixed-method design. The quantitative data were analyzed by t-test, Chi-square test, and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients in SPSS version 24. The results of the t-test demonstrated no significant gender differences in perception towards the main variables. The Chi-square test reveals that the frequencies of occurrences of these phenomena significantly differ among the faculties of four hierarchical positions. The content analysis of the qualitative data revealed 12 major themes namely the four factors across academic units, the favorable impact of these phenomena, increased absenteeism, the sources of stress, anxiety, and frustration, lack of priority, teachers’ disinterest in teaching and learning, a sense of punctuality and responsibility, mutual understanding, timetable of the rescheduled classes, teacher’s accountability and students’ feedback, introducing training for teachers, and the role of authority. The findings of the study suggest a clear lack of administrative control over the teaching behavior of the faculties. The study recommends that the university authority should immediately address these issues to redress the grievances of the students and thereby ensure a quality culture in teaching, learning and research. Dhaka Univ. J. Biol. Sci. 31(2): 309-319, 2022 (July)

Influence of Academic Admission Qualifications on Student Skills Development in Public Technical Training Institutions in Kenya

Technical education skills development is one of the strategies Kenya needs for the achievement of sustainable transformative development. The role the technical institutions play in the achievement of this goal cannot be significant without relevant academic admission qualifications. The objective of the study was to examine the influence of academic admission qualifications on student skills development in public technical training institutions in Kenya. Focusing on Diploma final year 2021 students Clothing Technology and Building and Construction Technology, the study population included 49 technical institutions recognized by Technical Vocational Education and Training Authority, Kenya National Examination Council, and Higher Education Loan Board (HELB) not later than 2018, 49 principals, 348 lecturers and 4,999 students from which a sample of 11 principals, 100 lecturers and 100 students was determined using Fisher (1998) and Bartlett et al, (2001) sample determination formulae. Simple random sampling method was used in sample selection. Contacted participants included 8 principals. 80 lecturers and 80 students. response rate included 100% for principals, 69(86.25%) for lecturers and 70(87.5%) for students. The study was anchored to the Convergence parallel mixed research design. Data was collected by means of questionnaires, document analysis guide and interview schedules. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used in collecting, analyzing and reporting the findings. Hypothesis test results revealed that ( H 1 ) there is a statistically significant relationship between academic admission qualifications and student skill development in which P= ≤0.001, Alpha 0.05 . Qualitative results supported these findings as there were several referrals and fails at the KNEC technical results and student grievances over challenging course work content, inadequately trained lecturers and challenging national examinations. The study concluded that Kenya cannot entirely rely on the approved academic admission qualifications in the achievements of sustainable transformative development. The study recommended a review of the open admission policy to diploma level of learning, investment in technical education research, involvement of subject lecturers in the selection of students to TTI with KUCCPS and proposed a perceptual model of TTI curriculum implementation suitable for addressing academic admission qualification issues related to skills development inherent in the TTIs in Kenya. Keywords: Academic admission qualifications, Kenya, Kenya national examination Council, Skills development, Technical education, institutions, Technical institutions DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-6-10 Publication date: February 28 th 2023

Rethinking the ombuds office for a post-COVID world: an innovation perspective

ABSTRACT This study characterises the ombuds office in higher education as an innovative practice of handling employee, staff, and student grievances. Though ombuds offices have had a place on many higher education campuses for some time, their function has evolved in response to a changing environment. Drawing on Open-Systems theory, this study views the COVID-19 pandemic as both a challenge and an opportunity for universities to revisit their grievance handling practices and to devise best practices for a post-pandemic world. This study examines this assumption in the case of public higher education institutions in the State of Texas, using data from university websites and an online survey administered between March 2021 and May 2021. The study suggests that the new practices that ombuds offices have devised during the pandemic will serve as a toolbox that has the potential to place these offices on the track of sustainability in the post-COVID time.

An assessment of publishing practices and barriers faced by medical students to conduct research: A cross-sectional study from Pakistan.

BackgroundPakistan being a low‐ and middle‐income country, its institutes are substantially deficient in scientific and technological aspects and share limited research contributions to the world repositories. Therefore, there is a rising concern to reflect on the history and status of publishing attitudes among medical students in Pakistan and to highlight and address the barriers that they are facing.MethodsA study was conducted aiming to determine the experience, motivation, and attitude of medical students in regarding publishing practices throughout Pakistan in several medical colleges. A multivariable logistic regression model was used to find the independent predictors of students publishing a research article. Forward selection was used to arrive at the final stepwise logistic regression. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated. p < 0.05 was considered significant for all statistical tests.ResultsFrom a sample size of 1225 participants, only 6.6% of students had published an article in our study. Of these, 59% were males and 31.3% were in final year. Males were more likely to publish articles than females (OR = 2.69, 95% CI: 1.37–5.26) and final‐year students were more likely to publish articles than first‐year students (OR = 7.48, 95% CI: 1.34–41.81). Students that had the knowledge that performing research is the way through which they will be judged for jobs had significantly higher odds of getting an article published (OR = 16.21, 95% CI: 3.65–71.88). Additionally, students who had been taught how to write a paper and those who knew the process of submitting an article were more likely to get published than the others.ConclusionOur study has successfully highlighted the status of publishing among medical students in Pakistan. Our findings serve as an eye opener and call to action for authorities to address the grievances of students in terms of barriers, lack of mentorship, and lack of research teaching. We hope our findings can guide a strong policy change to facilitate the next generation of passionate researchers.

“Sure a Strong Devil”: Mabel Frazer, A. B. Wright, and the University of Utah Art Department's 1937 Sexual Misconduct Case

“Sure a Strong Devil”: Mabel Frazer, A. B. Wright, and the University of Utah Art Department's 1937 Sexual Misconduct Case

A Case Study of Student Hooligan Behaviour during Protest Action at the University of KwaZulu-Natal

This article focuses on the behaviour of students during protest action at the University of KwaZuluNatal (UKZN). The objectives of the study on which the article is based were to assess factors that contribute to student hooliganism and to evaluate the effects of violent student protests on the university community. The data were collected using interviews with 25 purposefully sampled participants including 20 students and five risk management personnel. The data were analysed using descriptive writing and identifying actively generated themes from the participants’ responses. The study found that a private security service and the South African police service actively instigated violence on campus as a means to disperse the crowd, and that the crowd retaliated with violence. It was also found that the university management’s ignorance of students’ grievances caused students to be violent and exhibit hooligan behaviour to attract management’s attention. Victims of violence experienced physical injury and destruction of their property, which inevitably affected them psychologically, academically and behaviourally. It is recommended that security personnel are trained to control crowds without using violence, and that university management resolve student grievances promptly before they lead to violent protesting.

The impact of Perceived Justice on Students’ Negative Emotional Responses during Service Recovery

This study sought to evaluate the impact of perceived justice on students’ negative emotional responses during service recovery. Quantitative, descriptive multi-variate regression analysis and a cross-sectional study were undertaken using a judgmental sample of 430 students drawn from three public Higher Education Institutions in South Africa. The results of this study showed that all the dimensions of justice, viz. procedural, distributive and interactional justice, have a negative and significant impact on negative emotions. The findings of this study could assist Higher Education institutional managers to interrogate the fairness of the processes used in Higher Education Institutions to address student grievances because they have a negative and significant impact on students’ negative emotions.

State-Level Students Grievance Support System

Students are the essential factor in an organization. The Scholar may feel dissatisfied with the service when he or she receives the delay of services. To beat this, we offer an optimized solution for the student grievances support system for improving the relationship between student and university by representing the model of e-complaint web-based system. The prevailing system has manual processing through committee, principal, head of department and college premises. This project overcomes the restrictions of the existing systems of complication of submitting a complaint and organizing it and it'll be a State-level support system. The proposed model is that the student has the ability to post a complaint easily and specifically using categories through our application and therefore the Admin are often ready to sort complains by supported keywords since the web application involves the utilization of keywords that are Students, Committee, Principal, University and Campus Which can be help us to provide the update data information through internet and It will helps to overcome the time process in an efficient way by acquire, store and process the data.

Addressing Student Girevances

This topic is focused on student grievances. Every student has its own problems and pressures at school. SDA schools should have at least a proper education on educating teachers to show that they really care and train the students to love Jesus. They need fair judgment to help students boost their self-esteem. Students must felt that somebody looks after them when they are in trouble or in difficulties. In the school, they could have at least leaders or a committee to approach when students are in need emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Like in the book of Matthew chapter 18, there are only two things God has emphasized which are love and humbleness. These are the things we should inculcate and practice in our school. There’s a large need for cooperation and openness between teachers and students in school. Whereas non-Adventists could appreciate and realized that SDA schools are not only promoting a high standard of education but also preparing the students for heaven.

Grievances Redressal Mechanism of University’s Students in India- Policy and Law

This research paper is based on analysing the grievances of students studying in Universities and the way they are handled. After analysing various books, websites, Acts, reports of committees, articles and case laws on the subject, it is found that the grievances of students may include issues related to admissions, withdrawal from the Course, ragging, attendance, debarring from appearing in exams, non-issuance of admit cards, unfair marking, delayed results, issuance of degree and mark sheets, harassment and discrimination on basis of caste, race, religion or sex etc. But due to weak regulatory mechanism coupled with autonomous behaviour of Indian Universities, the grievances of University’s students are not properly addressed. The legal safeguards become essential. We have seen that after ragging was declared an offence, the cases dropped intensely. However, Laws can help to prevent, but not cure. Supreme Court in its decisions observed that it is the duty of teachers to take such care of the pupils as a careful parent would take of his children and they should conduct himself more like some Rishi and also as loco parentis. Further, the educational institutions and the civil society should take sufficient measures for the safety, security and equality. The civic learning is the need of hour and should be an integral component at each and every level of system of education. Many countries have in place proper civic learning at school as well as in higher education. For instance, USA have specially designed courses, while Some others have a civic education in all courses with themes of inequality, diversity, religious oppression, racism, sexism, classism and the like. Having the widened diversity in India, we badly require a similar structure in our system of education.

Damage Limitation: Learning Lessons from Complaints and Appeals Staff on the Handling of Student Grievance

Against a backdrop of rising student complaints in higher education (HE) and debate about students as consumers, increasing attention is turning to institutional processes for dealing with complaints and appeals. This paper draws on a nationwide survey across UK HE to explore the unique experiences of Complaints and Appeals staff. The research provides important new insights into the perceived benefits of student complaints as well as the challenges. The findings indicate a need to change the culture around complaints to help address issues such as time taken to resolve formal complaints, expectations of students and impact on student/staff relationships. Drawing on theoretical models of service failure from the business sector, combined with a co-production model of HE, we conclude with recommendations about how complaints and appeals might be regarded as a learning opportunity leading to improved channels of communication and dissemination, as well as offering continuing professional development opportunities.

Policy Document on Student Grievance, Student Activities, Onsite-Online Library Services, Borrowing-Returning Books at Higher Quality Accredited Institutions

This Policy Document gives an instrument to tending to understudies' complaints as indicated by fair treatment. This arrangement report incorporates complaints among understudies and understudies, understudies and workforce, understudies and non-scholastic staff, just as understudies and heads. Just endorsed understudy associations direct understudy exercises on or off the grounds. All University exercises directed by an authoritatively perceived understudy association must be endorsed by the Office of the Student Affairs. The motivation behind this strategy report and strategies is to give a lot of techniques to the direct of understudy exercises. This arrangement record and systems covers the arranging, booking, and by and large direct of understudy association exercises. This Policy Document additionally guarantees that the library framework is made accessible to understudies and employees every minute of every day inside and outside the grounds. This approach record and methods mean to give help to all library clients to guarantee full usage of library administrations. This approach report covers all clients of the library which incorporates personnel, understudies and staff. This Policy Document guarantee the particular headings, appropriate documentation and effectiveness of the obtaining and returning of books, reading material, references, diaries/magazines, various media materials, and other library assets in help for educating and learning forms. Understudies and employees will get to the Library framework remotely. This approach report and methodology expect to give explicit bearings and appropriate documentation on how books and other library materials are coursed and controlled and for proficient and quality support of understudies, staff, non-showing faculty and other individual from the learning network. This approach archive covers all borrowers of books to incorporate personnel, understudies and staff.

Transform student grievance process into educational tool for student success

Almost every college and university has an established process and institutional documents for how a student can file a grievance about academic or behavioral conduct issues. The information and processes are typically embedded into the institution's student handbook and/or institutional policy and procedures manual.

Sexual Violence, Title IX and Women's College Enrollment

Sexual violence has long been a problem on college campuses, yet federal policies to protect students have largely been ineffectual. Spurred by student grievances, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights recently began investigating how sexual assault cases were handled at a number of institutions under the Title IX provisions of the Education Amendments of 1972. These investigations focus attention on specific colleges' responses to cases of sexual violence and raise the specter that these institutions may fail to properly investigate allegations or punish perpetrators. In this paper, we examine the implications of these investigations on college enrollment, particularly for women. We combine institution-level panel data on enrollment by age and gender, with information on Title IX investigations to study changes in women's college enrollment. We estimate that enrollment of women at colleges under Title IX investigation declined by 16 to 22 percent. The declines are consistent with both declining matriculation and retention of female students.

A strategy for detection of inconsistency in evaluation of essay type answers

The quality of evaluation of essay type answer books involving multiple evaluators for courses with large number of enrollments is likely to be affected due to heterogeneity in experience, expertise and maturity of evaluators. In this paper, we present a strategy to detect anomalies in evaluation of essay type answers by multiple evaluators based on the relationship between marks/grades awarded and symbolic markers, opinionated words recorded in answer books during evaluation. Our strategy is based on the results of our survey with evaluators, analysis of large number of essay type evaluated answer books and our own experiences regarding grievances of students regarding marks/grades. Results of both survey and analysis of evaluated answer books identified underline, tick and cross as frequently used markers compared to circle and question mark. Further, both opinionated words and symbolic markers identified through the survey are used by evaluators to express either positive or negative sentiments. They have differential usage pattern of these symbols as single evaluator and as one amongst multiple evaluators. Tick and cross have well define purposes and have strong correlation with marks awarded. However, the underline marker is being used for dual purpose of expressing both correctness and incorrectness of answers. Our strategy of inconsistency detection first identifies outliers based on the relationship between marks/grades awarded and number of symbols and/or opinionated words used in evaluation. Subsequently, marks and number of symbolic markers of outliers are compared with peer non-outlier answer books having same marks but different number of markers used. Such outlier answer books are termed as anomalous. We discovered 36 anomalies out of total 425 evaluated answer books. We have developed a prototype tool to facilitate online evaluation of answer book and to proactively alert evaluators of possible anomalies.

When the barking stopped: Censorship, self-censorship and spin in Fiji

After four military coups in 20 years, Fiji is poised to return to democracy in elections promised for 2014. An emergency decree placing censors in newsrooms was lifted in January 2012, but with domestic media gagged by lawsuits and Fiji Television threatened with closure for covering opposition figures, a pervasive climate of self-censorship imposed by government decrees is enforced by a government-appointed judiciary. As elections draw closer, the illusion of press freedom is framed by highly paid American ‘spin doctors’ from a prominent Washington DC public relations and lobbying firm. Paralysis in the newsroom is reflected at Fiji’s premier University of the South Pacific, once a leader in journalism education. The author taught television journalism at the university and trained reporters for Fiji TV in the 1990s, but returned to find Fiji’s media and higher education in a crisis reflecting the decline of Western influence in the Pacific. Student grievances over harassment and expulsion in retaliation for independent reporting echo the deceit and dysfunction unfolding on the national stage. As traditional allies Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States anguish over sanctions, unprecedented visits to the Fijian government by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and incoming Chinese Premier Xi Jinping portend diplomatic rivalry and raise the stakes for a fragile Pacific nation.