Warwick pays compensation to postgraduate student with cancer after denying coursework extension

The University of Warwick has paid compensation to a postgraduate student, Riham Sheble, for initially denying her request to extend her coursework deadlines following a cancer diagnosis.

Warwick announced it has paid Sheble £12,000. The University says it is for the ‘distress and inconvenience’ it caused by not granting her request to extend her deadlines and course.

Sheble was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in early 2021. Warwick University and College Union (Warwick UCU) and Unis Resist Border Controls (URBC) had worked with Sheble to fight for her right to stay at Warwick.

Alongside the fight to stay at Warwick, Sheble, who is from Egypt, also fought a Home Office ruling that denied her mother a visa to visit her. A campaign with the help of hundreds of Warwick staff and students helped to reverse that decision.

Without the extension, Sheble’s visa was due to expire and she would have been forced to leave the country.

Sheble’s request for a coursework deadline to be extended was rejected in spring 2022 but reversed that summer.

We accepted this conclusion and recognised we had got this wrong – and then worked to put it right

– University of Warwick

The University released a statement after an enquiry into the handling of the case found Warwick to have been ‘overly cautious’:

“A formal investigation was carried out into a complaint by a student which centred on how we had interpreted Home Office rules around the requests for visa extensions.

“That investigation found that we had been overly cautious in how we applied these rules and could have shown greater flexibility in this case. We accepted this conclusion and recognised we had got this wrong – and then worked to put it right.

“A decision to reject a further deadline extension to her coursework was reversed. And we wrote to the Home Office on the student’s behalf asking for her mother to be allowed to come into the UK to support her, which was successful.

“We also felt it was the right thing to do to make a payment to the student rather than contest it through a potentially lengthy complaints process, given the unique circumstances involved in this case.”

The University also apologised to Sheble.