In these  grim days of education cuts, lecturer strikes and student anger at the possibility of tuition fees or graduate contributions, you would hope that universities would be focused on providing the best possible experience for both staff and students. You would hope that universities would be doing their utmost to provide the best education they possibly could, and trying to reduce the bureaucracy that so often impedes quality learning. Perhaps some universities are doing these things, but unfortunately for all of us, the University of Edinburgh isn’t one of them. In fact, the University of Edinburgh has decided that administrative time is best spent enforcing just the kind of bureaucracy that impairs teaching and studying.

Originally published on March 15, 2011

This past week, The Student’s news team created a survey about the main Library. We sent it out to our section mailing lists, posted it on Facebook, and forwarded the survey to several school and course secretaries, asking them if they could forward it to their students. Questions ranged from whether students thought construction work should cease during exam time to whether they felt well informed about the library renovation process and how it might affect their work at different times.

We were hoping to get as broad a range of respondents as possible, because as a student newspaper, local student issues (like how students feel about their university’s library) are some of the few stories for which we can generate original content. Unfortunately, the University of Edinburgh has decided that since our survey had not yet received the approval of the SSEC, it is against the rules for us to distribute it.

What is the SSEC, you ask? Well, as The Student was graciously informed via a cease and desist email, the SSEC is the Student Survey Ethics Committee, which is charged with approving every survey that is to be distributed on a college or school-wide basis. The SSEC requires up to three weeks to approve a survey, and those wishing to conduct the survey must submit a hard copy of the survey to the committee, include a cover letter “outlining the rationale behind the survey” and “an outline of the way in which those to be surveyed will be recruited”.

The Student did none of these things, mostly because not even in our wildest dreams would we have believed that the University maintains a committee specifically tasked with reviewing surveys being sent to its students. Apparently such a breach of the University’s rules is untenable, and The Student received an email from a member of the committee’s support staff which read, in part: “Therefore I must ask you to withdraw this survey until it has been through the correct process.”

The University would probably defend this directorial supervision of surveys by saying that they do not wish their students to be sent offensive, misleading or badly-conceived surveys. The Student would argue that anyone wishing to send such a survey would probably not submit it to the committee for approval in the first place. Several of The Student’s staff members received the link to the survey in their student email accounts so it seems pretty clear that course secretaries are either unaware of this committee’s existence or do not pay its rules any attention.

Furthermore, the amount of rubbish forwarded to students via their departments and schools is staggering. The Student’s staff is particularly annoyed by the endless solicitations from a company which wants to send us abroad to look after screaming children at a summer camp. The Student is insulted that the University fails to regulate advertisers taking advantage of its mailing system, but deems it prudent to prevent a student newspaper from carrying out a legitimate survey.

It is disappointing to see that instead of focusing on providing opportunities for students and staff, the University of Edinburgh is deeply engrossed in preventing student publications from doing their jobs. If the the University wants to be taken seriously by its staff and students, it needs to conceive policy and make rules about things that actually matter.The Student has only three words for the SSEC and the University: get over yourselves.