Student Policies and Regulations

Fitness to Study Policy

The Open University is committed to helping students achieve their study goals and to providing support throughout the student journey, in accordance with the OU Student Charter. We recognise that studying can contribute towards positive wellbeing in many cases.

Some students may face difficult circumstances during their studies, and may act or behave in ways that are contrary to the Student Charter as a result of these difficult circumstances.

This policy sets out how we can support you with your study goals if, as a result of facing difficult circumstances during your studies, your behaviour affects the way you interact with The Open University community and raises concerns with us about your health, safety or wellbeing. This policy will also be used where a student’s behaviour adversely impacts on other members of our community including other students and staff, or impacts on the teaching and administrative processes of The Open University.

If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact the Student Support team via Contact us (phone +44 (0)300 303 5303), or via StudentHome if you are a current student. For requests relating to postgraduate research student policies, please contact the Research Degrees Team via research-degrees-office@open.ac.uk.

The policy applies to all students of The Open University and learners studying credit-bearing courses on our Apprenticeships, Vocational Qualifications or Microcredentials, which includes undergraduate taught Students, postgraduate taught Students, Postgraduate Research (PGR) Students, PGCE (Wales) Students, students on a work-based placement (e.g. nursing or social work qualifications), Microcredential Learners, Apprenticeship Learners, and Vocational Qualification (VQ) Learners.

This policy covers behaviours at, on or during contact with staff by telephone, email, webform, in online meetings or in person, tutorials, day schools and residential schools. It also covers Open University hosted online forums and monitored social media sites and other Open University online or in-person events. Where we do not monitor a social media site, we can only act if concerns are brought to our attention by students or staff.