MSA Student Rights

1. News
2. Complaints and Greviences
3. Discipline
4. Academic Progress (Exclusion)
5. Rights and Responsibilities
6. How to...

Exams! Essays! Stressed?
Visit your friendly Student Rights Officer today!

If you have any concerns regarding your assessment, disputes with lecturers, exam timetabling, special consideration applications- or anything else related to uni for that matter, don’t forget that help is here. 

Come and visit the Student Rights Office for some helpful advice or advocacy if things aren’t going too smoothly for you.  If we can’t help you ourselves, we will know of someone who can.

Remember that the end of semester might be stressful, but you can get through it if you plan ahead:

• make sure you speak to lecturers early if you think you might need an extension for work
• check out the University’s Special Consideration information if you think you might need some extra help (it doesn’t hurt to apply, and it might save you some worry later on)
• double check your exam timetable and print it out
• make an exam study timetable so that you don’t have to cram at the last minute for all your exams
• leave plenty of time to get to the exam venue

A grievance is a formal complaint that you might have about any aspect of the University. It should be noted that the University has separate procedures for dealing with Misconduct, Exclusions, and Sexual Harassment issues. Complaints might be of an administrative nature, where a student feels they have been treated unfairly by the University in terms of their enrolment, credit transfer, or provision of facilities, or they may be related to academic matters, such as the marking of a piece of work, or the teaching style of a lecturer.

The university has recently changed its processes for handling individual Complaints and Grievances, and the Student Rights Office has not yet had a chance to update its material to reflect these changes. To find out more about the policy and procedures relating to complaints and grievances, see the Monash website:

To find out more about Complaints and Grievances, see our information sheets:

Further infomation:

3. Discipline

The Monash University Discipline Statute recognises a range of misconduct offences that can result in penalties ranging from fines to exclusion. Misconduct refers to both general and academic issues, and can include everything from exam cheating to harassing another person. Introduction: There are proccedures in place to deal with all disiplinary matters, and you should always be considered innocent until proven guilty. If a member of the faculty acceses you of doing something wrong, youuwill have the chance to put your side of the story. These procedures exist to protect you too.

Going through Disciplinary procedures can be stressful, and there may be potentially seroius consequences, so you should seek help from friends, consellors, the Student Rights Office or all of the above.

To find out more about Complaints and Grievances, see our information sheets:

Further resources:

4. Academic Progress (Exclusion)

Continued enrolment in your course depends on passing enough subjects.  At the end of each year, the University examines the performance (marks) of students to see if they are passing enough subjects to eventually get their degree.  This is called Academic Progress Review, it is done by the Academic Progress Committee (APC) in each faculty. 

Why come to the Student Rights Service? The Student Rights Service at Clayton is run independently of the University by the Student Association, funded by your Amenities Fees.   Our focus is you, the student, not the interests of the University.  Our Student Rights Officers are available all year to help with student queries and issues, and are highly conversant with University policy and procedures.  During the Exclusions period we offer an extended service with Student Rights Advocates who are well trained and experienced in all exclusions related matters. 

To find out more about the Academic Progress process see our information sheets:

5. Rights and Responsibilities

Students are often unaware that they have rights while they're at University.  Unless you know your rights, and are confident to assert them, the University’s many policies may be meaningless.  With all rights come responsibilities too, so make sure you know what the University expects from you or you might get caught out.  Check out the lists below and talk to your Student Rights Officer if you feel one or more have been ignored or violated.

Monash University does not have an explicit charter of rights for students, as many other universities do.  Instead, your rights are scattered throughout several hundred policies, procedures, regulations and other documents at both university and faculty level.  This can make it difficult to know whether your rights are being protected or violated by the university. 

The university also tends to couch talk of “rights” in terms of reciprocal “responsibilities”, which is important in that it reminds us that rights do not exist in isolation, but it further compounds the difficulties that students have in identifying if or when their rights are being violated.

The university’s seminal policy that outlines the key responsibilities of staff (which in turn indicate your rights), is the “Codes of Practice for Teaching and Learning” Policy.  The responsibilities oulined in this policy that Monash expects both its staff and students to shoulder follow below, and a link to the full policy is given at the end.

To find out more about your rights and responsibilities see our information sheets:

6. How to...

If you are engaging in a formal university process, writing a good, old-fashioned paper letter to the university is the best way of having your situation and opinions understood than any number of e-mails and phone messages. A general rule of thumb is that if you want to highlight how serious you consider the situation, a paper letter will convey that much better than any other form of communication.

For more information and examples on how to do things, see our information sheets:

IF YOU COPY THESE EXAMPLE LETTERS, YOUR CASE WILL NOT BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY, AND YOUR POSITION MAY BE FURTHER COMPROMISED. PLEASE SPEAK TO YOUR STUDENT RIGHTS OFFICER.