Student Complaints | Media Design School

Media Design School at Strayer encourages positive communication and aims to foster an environment of continuous improvement. The Student Complaints Policy and associated Procedure documents and Forms linked below emphasize the importance of courtesy, mutual respect, confidentiality, and procedural fairness in resolving student complaints.

Student Complaints Policy

Key points are summarised here:

Academic complaints: related to the delivery of a student’s enrolled subjects.
Non-academic complaints: involve services and facilities provided by MDS or non-academic decisions made by MDS. They also include complaints about unfair treatment by another member of the MDS community, such as discrimination, harassment, victimization, vilification, and bullying.

Media Design School has a four-step approach to address student complaints. The procedures and timelines for handling specific types of complaints may vary.

Informal Discussion: Complaints should be resolved informally whenever possible through discussion between the student and the person directly responsible for the decision or behaviour.
Formal Complaint: If the issue cannot be resolved informally, the student may ask for a formal review of their complaint.
Internal Appeal: A student may appeal the outcome of their formal complaint within 20 working days if they believe the results are unfair or incorrect.
External Review: If all internal avenues have been exhausted, the only remaining option for further appeal is external.

You can find out more about your rights as a student and how to handle complaints with this resource from NZQA.

If you are not satisfied by the outcome of our complaints process, you may be able to raise your concerns externally. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority’s website provides useful information about the avenues available to you.