Canterbury Christ Church University and Kent University are failing in their duty to provide vital information to students, according to a report by consumer watchdog Which?

It found the pair are among a swathe of UK universities which fall short of the standards required to properly inform students about subjects such as changes to courses tuition fees, contact hours, workload and teaching staff.

Christ Church was one of 49 institutions judged to provide “inadequate information” to students, including because links on its website were broken.

The university insists it is taking the report very seriously.

Spokesman Holly Finch told the Gazette: “The Which? report highlights issues which are extremely important to us and we have taken immediate action to address many of the priority issues raised.

“As the report notes, a broken link between our website and Higher Education Funding Council for England’s website meant that certain course information was temporarily unavailable. This has since been resolved and we will be making sure this data also displays directly on our course pages.

“The 2016/17 tuition fees for undergraduate courses at Canterbury Christ Church are now updated. We also publish a guide on our website outlining which costs are included in tuition fees and areas of additional costs for students.

“Further work is underway to provide detailed costs at course level.

“We are strongly committed to meeting Competition and Marketing Authority guidelines, ensuring that information is easily accessible for all prospective and current students, and this will remain a high priority for us.”

Kent fared better in the report, called Higher education: a review of providers’ to change courses.

But Kent was still rated as having “bad practice”. One student interviewed by Which? complained to investigators that a price increase in fees was not properly announced.

“I had no idea that they would be doing this as I thought that even if the fees did go up it would only affect new students coming in,” the student said.

“The university also only drew attention to the price increase in an invoice that was sent about 2 weeks before payment was due.”

Kent University has been asked for a comment, but has yet to provide one.

The Which? report states: “From an analysis by a Which? consumer lawyer, based on the information provided by universities, we consider that over half (51%) of higher education providers currently use contract terms or other policies that give them a wide discretion to change courses after enrolment.

“It is against this background that the fairness of terms or policies that allow changes to courses must be assessed.

“Variations to degrees once students have enrolled pose a significant risk of detriment, and the circumstances in which changes can be made fairly will be limited. Providers need to recognise this and ensure the impact on their student body of any potential changes is at the centre of their policies.”