F101721/1/2015

Proposed Incidental Student Fees and Charges: University Interpretations

Incidental Student Fees and Charges - UWA Interpretations:

Fee or charge refers throughout this document to any incidental fee or charge which is incurred by students including those levied directly by the University or levied by external bodies (e.g. Health Department) due to a 'requirement' of the University. "Requirement" has the same meaning as "compulsory or essential" as defined below.

course, on the authority of a DIISRTE spokesperson, includes "unit", whether compulsory or elective.

compulsory or essential has one meaning that is in absolute terms, viz. a good or service made by the actions of the University an unavoidable condition of enrolment in and/or completion of a unit.

compulsory or essential has a second meaning that is relative to the normal time and place at which a component of a unit is conducted or manner in which it is conducted, viz. a good or service made by the actions of the University essential for the student to have personal access to at any time and/or at any place decided upon by the University. For example, if a unit includes laboratory classes that each student normally attends, even if the classes are not compulsory; and if a student cannot participate in or complete a laboratory class without having some particular item readily accessible to them in the laboratory at the normal and scheduled time, then the item is "compulsory or essential'.

student means Commonwealth supported student or domestic fee-paying student. It does not include fee-paying students from overseas, nor students enrolled via Access. However, it is undesirable to discriminate between different categories of students at the point of imposing an incidental charge - therefore an overseas fee-paying student should not be charged an incidental fee that these guidelines do not allow to be charged to a domestic student. The fee charged to an overseas student should be calculated to be sufficient so as to avoid this sort of discrimination (refer point (b) of the University's Principles).

equipment and manuals which a professional in the field would not be required to own… requires some flexibility in interpretation but in general refers to graduates with a professional/vocational degree, who immediately or within a year of, or within the usual life span of the equipment, normally become or seek to become professionals.

readily available, in the case of readings and manuals, must be judged in terms of the number of copies in relation to the enrolment in the unit. In general it is necessary that the number available, for example in the Library, be sufficient to change the supply/demand ratio and shift the prevailing student behaviour away from regarding purchase as practically unavoidable towards more utilisation of freely supplied resources. Schools are encouraged to discuss this issue with students and the Librarian.

no additional charge means free of all costs to the student.

alternative Form(s) means equivalent goods or service with respect to content, function and usefulness; and at a time and place that is either identical (where time and place are of the essence of usefulness) or "readily available" (defined above).

the choice of acquiring from a supplier other than the provider should be a real and practical choice, otherwise the charge would not be allowable.

items that become the physical property of the student has relevance only where the items have some value-in-use after graduation, either vocationally or in some other way related to the student’s graduate status. This might include models and works of art produced in the latter years of a course, but does not include undergraduate essays or laboratory reports, drawings, mounted specimens, microscope slides, etc. It does however include calculators (either programmable or non-programmable).

food and accommodation associated with field trips, practical work experience, clinical placements - consideration should be given to the relationship between the charge to students and the educational value of the activity to students. In addition, schools are encouraged to provide, support or subsidise the activity, where possible.

actual cost includes the direct cost of materials, goods and services used in production. It should not include departmental staff time or University overheads such as power or space, or other overheads which are not borne by schools.

school means any entity under the control of the Dean that may propose to make a charge.

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