Case Summaries
Back to Case SummariesStudent protection - PI112501
Public interest case November 2025 | Justified
This case summary about Brit College illustrates the impact on individual students where there is a gap in student protection.
Public interest information
This case summary about Brit College illustrates the impact on individual students where there is a gap in student protection. We have frequently raised concerns about protections for students who study for HE qualifications awarded by organisations that are not OIA members. This case illustrates the real life impact of this situation. By sharing this information we hope to influence a change in student protection. You can read more information about the background in our Wonkhe article.
This case summary also shows the impact on students where de-designation takes place. Where a provider can no longer continue delivering higher education, for any reason, students should be adequately protected and able to continue to study – they should not be collateral damage.
Brit College has refused to comply with our Recommendations for the students impacted.
A cohort of students were studying for the Level 5 Diploma in Education and Training (DET) at Brit College between July 2023 and July 2024. The DET was awarded by City & Guilds. Students were expecting to receive their certificates confirming they had achieved the qualification in July 2024. The students were told in December 2024 that City & Guilds had raised concerns during an external quality assurance visit and that it was not yet possible to issue the certificates.
A group of students made a complaint to the College about the delay in issuing their certificates. The College issued a Completion of Procedures Letter to the group’s representative in January 2025. It acknowledged that there had been a delay and confirmed that it was continuing to communicate regularly with City & Guilds to re-assess work and decide if students would need to undertake any further placements or submit more work. The re-assessment work was being delayed by a shortage of assessors because of staff leaving the College. The College said that compensation for the delay or any tuition fee refund would not be considered within the complaints process.
17 students complained to us as a group, and 11 students complained to us as individuals. Between January and April 2025, we sought additional information from the College. By April it was clear that the students who complained to us could not receive the qualification, because City & Guilds had decided that the work that they had submitted and the placements some students had undertaken were not of the required quality. The College formally halted all re-assessment work on 22 April 2025, until it could arrange new placements, which it said would be an essential component of the re-assessment process.
We upheld the students’ complaints (we decided that they were Justified). The students had completed all of the work that had been set, and they had not been given any indication by the College during their studies that the work was not sufficient or was not of the required standard. Nine months after completing the course, the students were told that they would need to undertake substantial further work. This was unfair.
In correspondence with the students, the College had accepted that there had been systemic failures in quality assurance. It had said,
“You are right to be concerned about the turnover of staff assessing student work and I acknowledge that this reflects a systemic issue. Some assessors issued passing grades indiscriminately in the past, leading to undeserving students receiving certificates.”
It also said,
“Unfortunately, we are in a very embarrassing position at the moment, with some students believing that they passed and the owners of the qualification saying no. We have stopped access to Moodle for that reason. The marks on it are fake, to be honest. The people who marked did not read any scripts but just blindly wrote ‘pass on everything.' ”
However, in correspondence with us, the College suggested that the students had some responsibility for the position that they found themselves in, saying,
“These students were not passive victims. As mature learners… they should have reasonably understood the requirements of the course having received extensive explanations… in handbooks and at induction. They were responsible for securing appropriate placements and aligning the learning outcomes with their work practice accordingly.”
We decided that the College’s position was not reasonable. The College had a responsibility to clearly indicate to its students if their work was not of a satisfactory standard, or if the placements being undertaken were unsuitable. It failed to do so. As a result of this failing, students cannot gain the qualification for which they were registered without significant further investment of time and effort. At the time we made our decision, there was no clear timeline for when this further study might take place, nor clarity about exactly what it would involve. The students who complained to us explained that any further study would be very difficult for reasons connected to their financial, employment and domestic situations.
We recommended that the College should refund in full the tuition fees that the students had paid (£6,165 each). We also recommended that the College should offer each individual student a payment in recognition of the disappointment, distress and inconvenience caused by the systemic failures in quality assurance, and delay in offering a meaningful resolution to the students. We recommended between £6,000 and £8,000 to each student, depending on the student’s individual circumstances, considering factors such as lost income, lost employment opportunities and additional financial borrowing caused by the delay.
The College has not complied with our Recommendations. It issued a statement on its website saying that,
“Brit College is currently unable to meet these awards due to financial constraints. However, we are exploring funding options to resolve these matters fairly. Students with successful OIAHE outcomes will be recorded as creditors of the College and considered in any future redress.”
We followed our Compliance Protocol and explained to the College that, under our Rules, we report non-compliance with our Recommendations to our Board. We did not receive a response from the College. We reported the College’s failure to comply with our Recommendations to our Board in September 2025 and shared information about the complaints with the Office for Students (OfS), Department for Education (DfE) and Ofqual.