Students and graduates of a London university are headed to court over the quality of teaching during strikes and COVID-19 lockdowns. Around 5,000 current and former students sued University College London (UCL) after classes were moved online or canceled altogether.
Their lawyers are calling the school to make “sensible settlement proposals” to avoid going to trial. The cases against UCL will be the first to go to court, but current and former students at other universities are seeking compensation, as well.
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Lawyers in the United Kingdom set up a website to offer representation to university students. They said more than 155,000 people have signed up so far.
The students seeking compensation said canceled and online teaching restricted their access to facilities and damaged the quality of learning, breaching the university’s contractual obligations to provide in-person teaching and access to facilities. UCL denied the claims, saying it was under no such obligation.
In June, the law firms representing the students argued for a group litigation order, which would have allowed all the claims against UCL to be processed as one single claim. A court dismissed that request.
Instead, a few students representing a variety of scenarios will be selected as “test cases” for the trial. Their judgements will help determine how other cases are settled moving forward. The students are set to go to court at the start of 2026.
