​Unhappy about your Academic grade or assessment?

Are you an international student who is studying in Australia under student visa subclass 500? Read carefully as you can find this information very useful. The information as been been collected and issued by Commonwealth Ombudsman for Overseas Students.  

If you think that your college has made an error or has marked your work unfairly you can follow this 3 steps fact sheet how to proceed.
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• Step 1. Talk to the teaching staff responsible for the course to question the mark, grade or other result.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome:

• Step 2. Make a formal written complaint or appeal with your provider, using the provider’s internal complaints and appeals policy. Your provider must give you a written outcome with reasons for its decision.

If you are not satisfied with the provider’s decision and reasons given in its response:

• Step 3. Make a complaint to an external complaint-handler, such as the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman (the Office)—but note they can only consider if your provider followed its academic assessment procedures. They cannot make academic merit decisions.

Case Study investigated by Commonwealth Ombudsman

​Tilly (not her real name) was an international student studying with a private education provider in Australia. She had sat an exam and logged in to her online study portal to see her result. She was pleased to see that she had passed. However the next time she logged in, she noticed that her mark had been changed and she had now failed the unit.
Tilly lodged a complaint with the provider and met with an academic supervisor to discuss the changed exam result, but the supervisor would not change the result back to her original passing mark, so Tilly contacted us to make a complaint.
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We investigated the case and found that:

• there had been a computer error when marks were first uploaded to the provider’s student portal, and marks were not matched to the right students
• the school later fixed the error, so that students received their own grades
• the school had communicated with concerned students
• the academic supervisor had met with Tilly to explain what had happened and had thought that Tilly had accepted the explanation.

In our view, the provider had acted fairly and reasonably in its actions relating to Tilly’s mark, as the computer error had been unforeseen, and the provider had taken fast and appropriate action in the circumstances. 

Thinking about studying in Australia or extending your student visa?
Contact Study Online Australia Team today
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