Accrington and Rossendale lecturers break world record

Lecturers from Accrington and Rossendale College have become world record breakers.

Phil Burgess and Simon Whitaker smashed the record for ‘the fastest team of two to hang three strips of wallpaper’ in a challenge organised by Dulux Decorator Centres and wallpaper manufacturer Graham & Brown.

The winning time of 1 minute 16.435 seconds was successfully set at the National Painting and Decorating show in Coventry in November, but, has this month received the official stamp of approval from Guinness World Records.

Mr Burgess said: “We are overjoyed that our record has been confirmed and grateful to both Dulux Decorator Centres and Graham & Brown for giving us this opportunity.

“The certificate recognises not only the speed in which we completed the challenge but also the high quality of the finish so it will certainly take pride of place at the college for all to see.”

FE winners step up to the Podium

A one-off celebration recognising the contribution FE colleges and universities have made towards the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was held in East London last Thursday.

The Podium Awards, held at Forman’s Fish Island and hosted by Channel 4 presenter Rick Edwards, was attended by more than 350 guests and recognised the sporting, educational and creative projects of more than 27 institutions from across the UK.

Gareth Smith, head of Podium said: “The enormous range of skills and approaches demonstrated, combined with the consistently high quality of the projects that were submitted for the Podium Awards, was absolutely astounding.

“The competition was fierce and we were delighted to see such a vast selection of ideas and activities which will genuinely impact on the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and their legacy.”

The women’s boxing programme delivered at Bradford College won the “Award for Outstanding Sporting Project”, beating Southampton University and the host borough colleges’ ‘Inter College Festival of Sport’.

The boxing scheme at Bradford College, which allows women of all abilities to be trained by professional coaches, has helped inspire greater female participation in the sport.

Paul Porter, boxing development officer at the Bradford Police and College Boxing Academy, told FE Week: “It’s an exciting sport and schemes like ours allow them to have access to good coaching and good facilities.

“All we’re really doing is meeting the demand, and our results at the moment are proving that we’ve got the right formula.”

The 230 projects nominated all serve as a tremendous example of how the power of the Games is being used to inspire people to make a real and lasting difference

Elsewhere the “Bridging the Gap” project, led by North Hertfordshire College (NHC), won gold in the “Award for Inspirational Skills Project” category.

The scheme, which has engaged 92 different further education colleges, is supplying the organisers of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games with thousands of young qualified stewards or security staff.

To date, the FE sector has funded 9,551 young people to undertake security qualifications, with further training being offered to students by Skills for Security, the National Counter Terrorism Security Office and LOCOG.

Fintan Donohue, chief executive and principal of NHC, said: “These students have had to undertake the training in their own time, and the excellent colleges that have made it possible have given their facilities and efforts freely to create an exceptional earning opportunity for students both now and even after the Olympics have ended.

“The nomination for the Skills award will give a great boost to all of the student ambassadors, project teams and the colleges that have worked so hard to deliver a great outcome.”

A further 11,412 students have, or are, taking a stewarding qualification which has led to work at recognised events such as Wimbledon, the British Grand Prix, the Ryder Cup, Premiership football matches, rock festivals, carnivals, and the Royal Wedding.

Uzi Khan, a student at NHC said: “The Bridging the Gap project has opened the door to my career.

“I’ve worked as a steward at Rhythms of the World and as soon as I got my Door Supervisors qualification I found a job with a local security firm.

“The next step for me is to hopefully work at the Olympics and in the future I’d like to start my own local security business.”

The “Olympic Park Film Project”, developed by Havering College, was awarded a silver medal in the same category.

The initiative gave students the chance to undertake two commercial-style film projects, commissioned by the Olympic Delivery Authority, which were later premiered at a city hall event hosted by the chair of the London Assembly.

A spokesperson for Havering College said: “For the students it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe and record on film the creation of the Olympic Park, sporting facilities and athletes’ village which will evolve to become new homes.

“One group worked with BBC Blue Peter gardener Chris Collins who was recruited as the presenter for the horticultural film on the development of the Olympic Park.

“Some of the students plan to continue on their Higher Education journey and as a result of the film have received unconditional offers for Film related degree courses at prestigious universities.”

The InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) Academy, led by Newham College, was also recognised as a runner up in the “Award for Inspirational Skills Project” category.

The project places learners on a six month course, combining a level 2 diploma in hospitality services with six weeks practical work experience.

The enormous range of skills and approaches demonstrated, combined with the consistently high quality of the projects that were submitted for the Podium Awards, was absolutely astounding.

The college says it is designed to provide job opportunities for people from areas with high unemployment rates, and to date has helped nine people secure a job.

Luigi Lipparelli, head of catering at Newham College said: “College staff feel proud to have received a nomination because it shows that we can be the most successful college in east London.

“It recognises that our staff have worked hard to improve the lives of local people and support an aim of the London Olympics legacy.

“It shows that we are flexible and innovative in working with employers to develop courses shaped by their needs.”

Other Podium Award winners included Weymouth College, who won gold in the “British Council Award for Innovative International Collaboration” with their Sailing Camps, Business and Education
programme, as well as SkillsActive, for their pre-employment programme ‘Personal Best’.

“Legacy Champions” a scheme led by nine FE colleges situated in the Olympic host boroughs, including Greenwich Community College, Hackney College and Newham College, were runners up in the “Award for Invaluable Volunteering Project” category.

The programme, developed in partnership with EDF Energy, asks each college to recruit 10 students who then identify and support a local community project in their borough.

A spokesperson for Greenwich Community College told FE Week: “(Our) project this year is a community art project capturing what Greenwich in 2012 means to the local community.

“Our students ran a survey with their peers and the local community asking them which images capture our borough and have worked with a local artist, Shallman Quashie, to produce a piece of artwork that will be displayed at the Discover Greenwich Visitor Centre from mid-May.”

The “Legacy Champions” from all of the host borough colleges then gather for a joint volunteer project, which for the last few years has included a clean-up of the Thames or the Island Gardens in Greenwich.

A spokesperson for Hackney College said: “Hackney Community College has been committed to the opportunities of the Games for many years, and has worked closely with Podium to make sure that that we have shared our experiences with other colleges and universities.

“We are incredibly proud of our staff and students’ enthusiasm for the opportunities of the 2012 Games – being nominated for these awards is the icing on the cake.”

Other shortlisted projects included the “Sport Gambia” project, which was organised by South Nottingham College and awarded a silver medal in the “British Council Award for Innovative International Collaboration” category.

Ten students studying BTEC Sport Development and Fitness at the college raised £550 each in order to travel to Gambia in March.

The students then visited five schools, one of which was for deaf and blind children, in order to put on sport and physical activity sessions for nearly 400 primary and secondary school students.

Diane Garfield, community and performance sport manager said: “This was an amazing opportunity for College students to learn more about other countries and cultures whilst delivering sport and physical activity to local people.

“The students had an immeasurable, life-changing experience seeing such extreme poverty, poor school conditions and how the children learn.”

Other notable nominations included the “Flames” project, developed by Loughborough College in partnership with the British Heart Foundation.

The scheme, which was shortlisted for the “Get Set Award for Inspiring Outstanding Learning through the London 2012 Games”, has helped motivate more children to be active by developing a training model for young leaders.

Anna Chalkley, the project manager, said: “All of the feedback we receive from college tutors is unanimous in saying that most significant impact of Flames has been on the effect on the student’s learning.

“One of the main benefits was their experience of working with and delivering to primary school children, something which cannot be recreated in the classroom with their peers and this has proved to be a definite personal gain for them.”

The programme, which has helped 400 FE and HE institutions to date, culminates in the “flames festival”, a mini-Olympics organised and ran by the young leaders.
The awards ceremony was an outstanding example of how colleges can help learners both during and after a national event such as the Olympic Games.

Paul Deighton, CEO of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, said: “Colleges and universities have played an integral role in supporting London 2012.

“I congratulate all of the Podium Awards winning projects on their exceptional work.

“The 230 projects nominated all serve as a tremendous example of how the power of the Games is being used to inspire people to make a real and lasting difference.”

Wallsall College staff to carry Olympic torch

Two Walsall College staff members have been named as official London 2012 Olympic Torchbearers.

The duo will be flying the flag for the Black County when the torch relay travels through the region on June 30.

Walsall College NVQ assessor, Ravendar Kumar, who has been at the college for 10 years, was selected for being an inspiration to others through his work in education sector and will carry the flame trough Willenhall.

Kim Clark, Walsall College’s further education sports co-ordinator, who will carry the flame through Newtown, is one of 55 exceptional community sports leaders chosen as a torchbearer through Coca-Cola’s Future Flames campaign.

She said: “Over the last couple of years I’ve been promoting the games as a great opportunity for people to get active, so to be involved in the relay is a great honour.”

Ravendar added: “I’ve been a huge fan of the Olympics from a young age and I’m really excited that I’ve been chosen to play a small role in such a historic event.”

Oxford & Cherwell Valley College students show their skills at Artweeks

Creative arts students at Oxford & Cherwell Valley College (OCVC) are preparing to show design and craft skills at the 30th anniversary Oxfordshire Artweeks.

Around 1,000 artists, including 180 new for 2012, are preparing to open almost 500 venues across Oxfordshire from May 5 to Sunday May 27 for the week.

OCVC’s Helen Amber, Creative Arts Oxford, programme manager said: “I think this is a great opportunity for our students to exhibit their work and show their diverse skills and creative potential.”
Art foundation student Alison Jones said: “This will be my first show and it is both exciting and nerve-racking.

“My work is about messages and communication – from hand written postcards to social networks, and explores the impact they can have.”

Exhausted? I can’t wait to get back to work

NUS’ National Conference is the biggest democratic meeting of students in the world. As such, it’s sort of got a bit of a weight on its shoulders. It’s the sovereign body of the National Union of Students in the UK and gives members (students’ unions) an opportunity to direct our policy for the year ahead, elect six of its national officers and hold previously elected officers to account.

Despite being completely exhausted after a week of elections, debates and procedural motions, I am absolutely honoured to have been re-elected as the NUS Vice President (Further Education), and I can’t wait to get straight back to work.

This year brings with it some of the greatest challenges to Further Education that we’ve ever seen. We’ll see the real impact of the complete withdrawal of EMA, moves towards the implementation of fees and loans in FE and a continued drive from Michael Gove to move A levels back into the 1950s.

In Scotland we’re seeing the forced mergers of colleges and a concerted drive towards “regionalisation” and we’re still defending the existence of EMA in Wales and Northern Ireland. We also have new policy in FE ensuring we are fighting for our entire membership whether they are in classrooms, prisons or the workplace, and regardless of their age or background.

Against that background, NUS continues to move its focus more and more towards defending the entire tertiary education system; and ensuring FE gets the attention it deserves. This year will see students from Further and Higher Education taking part in a national demonstration to protect education for all against government funding cuts.

It’s clear that NUS’ narrative is changing from the “HE centric” reputation it once had. Candidates in almost all elections this year articulated a need not just to serve those in our membership, but those who haven’t had the opportunity to get that far.

It’s time we worked for an entire generation that is being let down, with record youth unemployment, the introduction of new powers to stop and search students in schools and colleges and the conspicuous lack of involvement of young people in our democracy.

So, I’m straight back to work to fight against FE fees and loans, and we’ll see you on the streets.

Toni Pearce, VP for FE,
National Union of Students

College Inspections: Re-basing of Grades?

Some commentators are taking the view that, recently, Ofsted has focused too heavily on full time 16-18 programmes, and has neglected the complexities of general FE. One particular college has been downgraded from “Outstanding” in 2007 to “Inadequate” this year.

The inspection report suggests a biase towards the 16-18 provision, which accounts for a third of the college’s activity by student numbers. Interestingly, adult and employer programmes, which together accounted for two thirds of student numbers, had high performance and a trend of improvement. A private training provider with these kind of Employer Responsive grades would be graded as “Outstanding”, and yet this college is now “Inadequate”.

A different college was graded as “Outstanding” in late 2010 and had improved its 16-18 provision (22% of student numbers) to above average. Its Train to Gain provision (54% of student numbers) had declined to below average. A private training provider with these results would not have secured an “Outstanding” grade.

Perhaps this begs two questions: firstly, are we standardising inspection reports in the right way to ensure a like-for-like comparison between providers; and secondly, is Ofsted too closely aligned to the school sectors to be fully able to appreciate, and judge the more disparate provision which is found across FE?

There is, though, a third question, and that is around the focus, and ultimately, the purpose of inspection. Focuses are changed like knickers (ie, frequently, regardless of whether strictly necessary).

The focus now is the standard of teaching, learning and assessment, and few would deny that in an industry which revolves around teaching, learning and assessment that this is important. But there is a danger that, in the laudable quest for excellent teaching, the inspection regime might prescribe too narrow and too rigid a view of what that teaching should look and feel like.

I am currently reading Douglas Hurd’s excellent memoirs, which may or may not suggest a character flaw. I am struck by Hurd’s recollections of the teaching at Eton in the 1940’s. Hurd writes about the “mechanical” nature of the teaching, and of learning long Greek and Roman speeches by heart and translating them into English.

I would venture to suggest that if such a class was discovered in a functional skills session in some hidden recess of my college, it might not fare well under inspection. And yet Hurd says, “I learned more about the English language from studying the classics than from any number of English lessons.” I have my tongue firmly in my cheek as I write this, because I am not saying that by giving my noisy level 1 hairdressers and engineers a classical education, we will transform them into retired Foreign Secretaries who write interesting memoirs.

What I am saying, is that the art, the craft, the science (or whatever it is) of teaching is a wide one and that to take too narrow or too prescriptive a view of how it should be done is a fatuous exercise. And I am worried that this is going to happen.

My college recently went through a QAA IQER Summative Review of its HE provision (0.4% of student numbers since you ask). One might argue that they made a bit of a meal of it but we learned so much. You see, it was a dialogue rather than an inspection, and clever people that these HE folk are, they had us do most of the work for them.

It helped us to focus on how we might build quality into our programmes rather than trying to inspect defects out. And as any student of W Edwards Deming knows (although such knowledge would not come from a classical education), that is not a new concept. It’s just one that we need to be allowed to discover in FE.

Paul Stopford, Vice Principal at Telford College of Arts and Technology.
He writes in a personal capacity.

Peter Pledger, CEO, South London Business

For a man who has risen through trade unions, government quangos and the skills sector for more than three decades, Peter Pledger gives off an incredible sense of calm and modesty.

“The game plan has always been to avoid bankruptcy,” he says simply. “As long as I can do that I’m happy.”

As chairman of the Confederation of Apprenticeship Training Agencies (COATA) and chief executive of South London Business – a company which delivers apprenticeships both as a training provider and ATA – he’s certainly kept busy. His office, based in Croydon, is a rather simple affair, but he’s quick to dispel the miserable weather outside with a warm smile and welcoming handshake. It’s as if he has all the time in the world.

Growing up in Highbury at a time when the Victoria line didn’t exist, Peter recalls London as being a “grimy” and “dirty” place during his childhood. The avid Chelsea fan, whose parents moved to England from India, was one of only three black children at his school and thought of it as “quite a hostile place”.

“Bits of London were quite nasty,” he says honestly. “There was a lot more overt racism and a lot of attacks at the time. The national front were everywhere in Islington and so you had to get quite tough, quite quickly.”

Self-proclaimed as being “useless” at school, Peter admits he quickly blew his A-levels after spending too much time in the pub. But don’t count him out as a slacker. On the side Peter also worked as a hospital porter, carrying out the unenviable task of “shifting dead bodies” and cleaning up the subsequent mess.

“The overwhelming feeling about being a porter is that you’re waiting for the minutes to go by – every minute dragged,” he explains gloomily.

“When someone died or something horrible happened it was great, because you could actually do something, but most of the time you were waiting, and it was just a horrible way to do something.”

Throughout these humble beginnings Peter stumbled across a love for politics. The hospital, which was set to be closed down by the NHS during the 1979 general election, suddenly became a political campaign backed by a number of politicians including Margaret Thatcher.

Suddenly I heard the bolt go in the door behind me, and he said ‘well you’re not going out mate until you do sort it out’. I was on their side, but that was just how it was!

It helped persuade Peter to return to education, where he enrolled at St Mary’s University College and became vice president and later president for the Students’ Union. Alongside his studies Peter twinned the college with Birzeit University in Palestine.

“When we turned up there the Israelis knew who we were and what we were coming for, and while I’m not taking sides in the dispute, they couldn’t have been more horrible,” he explains. “Wherever we got into a taxi, they used to just slash the tires. One of the people we were going to meet was even shot – not killed – but shot before we met them.”

Peter recalls, then aged 21, being bundled out of the back of a building and switching cars in a bid to meet his political equivalent from Birzeit University.

“Our line was that we weren’t taking sides in the dispute, what we wanted to do was help other students to learn and to grow,” he says.

After a short spell date stamping post at Camden Council, Peter was elected as a shop steward for the National and Local Government Officers Association (NALGO), a trade union which would later merge to become Unison. Peter was then quickly snapped up by the TUC, setting in motion a lengthy career in union work.

The job at TUC was “brilliant”, Peter says, and allowed him to meet a number of renowned politicians, including a very young Tony Blair.

“I wasn’t impressed,” he says with a chuckle. “He just didn’t know what he was talking about!”

The National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) then invited him to be a representative for Thames Water, putting him in charge of all disputes and negotiations regarding pay, terms and conditions, grievances and disciplinaries. In our interview he recalls a particularly nervous visit to Beckton; one of the biggest sewage works in Europe.

“They took me into what they said was their mess room, and there were all these blokes – and I’m not small, but these were big guys – who said ‘well all of our pay has been stopped.’

“So I said ‘okay, let’s sit down, let’s just go through the details and try and understand how it’s all working, and then we’ll sort it out’. Suddenly I heard the bolt go in the door behind me, and he said ‘well you’re not going out mate until you do sort it out’. I was on their side, but that was just how it was!”

The impact of education, and in particular the necessity of being able to read and write, also became apparent to Peter during his time at Thames Water. In one particular incident, Peter recalls a group of men who refused to use new machinery.

My budget at the time was a quarter of a billion pounds a year. My personal spend authority, so money i could spend without asking anybody, was a million pounds worth of public money

“They came up with every excuse under the sun…but then I worked out what it was. None of them could read the manual. They couldn’t read and they had never needed to read, because they had worked on the same machinery that their fathers before them had, or that their friends had shown them.”

The union representative was later invited to chair the lifelong learning forum and also joined the board for the West London Training and Enterprise Council (TEC), which at the time was in charge of delivering apprenticeships in the surrounding area.

“All these things were unpaid, but that’s the way of life,” he says with a grin.

In a high-risk move Peter then applied to become the deputy chief executive of the London TEC council, which was set to be abolished by the Conservatives following their rise to power.

“The TECS didn’t think they were going to be abolished, they thought they were so good they were going to be safe,” he explains. “They forget that while learning is for life, quangos only last ten years. And they had hit their ten years.”

Peter knew that once the TECs were abolished, he would then be well placed to secure a position at one of their replacements, the ill-fated Learning and Skills Councils (LSC). It paid off. He was appointed alongside 46 other executive directors and later briefed by David Blunkett at a motorcycle factory in Birmingham.

“He gave us our instructions and said right, you’ve got until 9am on the 27th of March to be up and running, but you have no office, no staff, not even a PA, and you’ve got to make it work.

“On the first day you’ve got to control the funding of every FE college in your area, every adult and community institution in your area and all your work based learning providers.”

It was the challenge Peter had been waiting for.

“Not only could I think about solving the problems, but I also had the money to do it. My budget at the time was a quarter of a billion pounds a year. My personal spend authority, so money i could spend without asking anybody, was a million pounds worth of public money.” He adds: “Problems came along, but we fixed it.”

Peter spent seven years leading the LSC, training 34,000 people to read and write in the process, but left the organisation in 2006 when he felt his powers were being constrained.

“The ministers wanted greater control, they didn’t want appointed people spending money the way I was spending money. I could see all of that and therefore it became more rigid, less interesting.”

Peter then set up a consultancy, as he says “everyone does”, before being approached for the chief executive position at South London Business. The company, which he says “was running out of steam” when he took over, now has a healthy turnover of roughly £4-5 million.

And while it still offers business support, Peter has expanded its operations to become a training provider and ATA for apprenticeships.

“The problem for every single government body is how to get to employers. Well, this is a business organization, I start with the employers and thats what I do all the time… I’m constantly talking to businesses,” he says. “That’s why our ATA works and that’s why our skills bit works.”

Peter is also chairman of the Confederation of Apprenticeship Training Agencies (COATA), a membership group which he helped setup to try and protect the model from malpractice.

“I wanted to get rid of the scams. There were too many people saying they were ATAs who simply weren’t ATAs. I wanted to get them out of the market; this is to clean it up.”

Colleges call for FE loans to be delayed

The majority of professionals in the FE sector support delaying or scrapping the introduction of FE loans, according to a survey of Lsect members.

Nearly 70 per cent of respondents, who represent more than 150 different FE colleges, said the government should prolong the implementation of the scheme or abandon it completely.

The survey, designed with the Association of Colleges (AoC), National Union of Students (NUS), University and College Union (UCU) and Unison, adds to growing concerns about the impact of the scheme both on learners and providers.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU, said: “The government has got itself in enough trouble by not listening to the experts in recent months.

“It now needs to listen to the collective voices from across further education that make it clear that the sector is simply not prepared for, and does not want, FE loans.

“As well as avoiding another NHS-style PR disaster, pausing now will allow some of the record numbers of unemployed people access education.”

The survey, which asked principals, vice principals and MIS managers what changes they would like to make to the proposed FE loans system, found that 69 per cent wanted it delayed or scrapped.

Very poor communication, nobody outside FE has any idea, and very few within FE understand and are fully aware of the issues and implications.”

Toni Pearce, vice president (FE) at the NUS, said: “Those working in the sector are deeply worried their colleges have simply not been given the opportunity to prepare for the havoc this loans scheme would wreak.

“The grassroots pressure to shelve these plans, coming from those who know the needs of their students best, is growing apace.

“The government must stop digging a hole for itself on this one and go back to the drawing board if a disaster for adult learners is to be averted.”

Respondents were also asked to score, on a scale of 1 to 10, whether they thought people were aware of the FE loans scheme.

More than half (55 per cent) said the sector was not very aware or prepared (1-4) for FE loans.

A further 89 per cent of respondents said the public was not very aware of the proposed system.

Debbie Ward, director of planning and funding at Salford City College, said: “Very poor communication, nobody outside FE has any idea, and very few within FE understand and are fully aware of the issues and implications.”

Julian Gravatt, assistant chief executive of AoC, added: “The survey shows that college staff have significant concerns about public awareness of the policy and how it will be communicated.

“There are also lots of concerns about the impact on access students, engineering students and students with learning difficulties and disabilities.

“It is clear that more information is needed about the finer detail of how this policy will operate to allow colleges to effectively prepare.”

However, the government says it is “working closely with the sector” to make sure it is prepared for the introduction of the loans, which will be for those aged 24 and over, studying  at Level 3 and above in the 2013/14 academic year.

A spokesperson for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) added: “Introducing loans will mean that thousands of people can access learning at a time when grant funding is being prioritised on those who need it most.”

FE Week will host a roundtable debate on May 9 to discuss the sector’s concerns about FE loans.

Speakers include Andrew King, lead for FE Loans at BIS, Gordon Marsden, shadow minister for further education, skills and regional growth and Miss Pearce.

Maxine Room, principal of Lewisham College and Peter Pledger, chairman of the Confederation of Apprenticeship Training Agencies (ATAs) and chief executive of South London Business, have also confirmed their attendance.

The Lsect survey follows a joint call for the delay in FE loans by the AoC, NUS, UCU and Unison.

The group has written to ministers arguing that the sector is not prepared for the changes and consequences of the system.

They also suggest a “pause” in the introduction of FE loans until there has been a full impact assessment and consultation with the sector.

(Click here for the survey figures.)

Update:

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has provided the following response:

“We are working closely with the further education sector to ensure they are fully prepared for the introduction of loans for those aged 24 and over studying at Level 3 and above in the 2013/14 academic year. As part of this, we are publishing monthly briefings to all providers and will be issuing communications to ensure learners are aware of loans and how to apply. In addition, the Skills Funding Agency and Student Loans Company will be running workshops for providers and the Learning and Skills Improvement Service will provide business change support.

“Emerging findings from the market research we have commissioned, which will be published later this month, suggest that most learners will consider learning funded by a loan. Introducing loans will mean that thousands of people can access learning at a time when grant funding is being prioritised on those who need it most .”

Best practice principles in student administration

After many years working with college information systems and the advances I’ve seen in technology, it still amazes me that there are vast differences in how colleges capture and use information to propel their business forward.

From my perspective, there are a few fundamental principles that would help any business to streamline their information processes and enable their users to rely on – and own – the messages that are produced.

Principle one: Only collect data once, at its source and in an accurate and timely way

This sounds fairly straight forward. However, this is the biggest challenge that commonly requires solving. It requires dedication to ensure that the information captured on courses, students, examinations, etc, is correctly represented. The best colleges have a dedication to getting this right at the data’s source and eliminate inconsistencies through robust business processes.

A critical example of this is ensuring the curriculum plan and the course file are one and the same. They must match exactly to the planned timetable so that the enrolment teams have complete information at their fingertips during enrolment.

Triangulating this information early also adds a valuable checking process, enabling incorrect errors to be eliminated easily. I have seen many course files created with generic or no dates that bear no resemblance to the way the course is being offered, it is simply a label that will be used to group enrolments.

Principle two: Collect the data in one holistic system

If that’s not possible, ensure that the data is ‘live linked’ to eliminate inconsistencies. Many information systems are made up of diverse legacy systems that have allowed data to be captured inconsistently. Simply exporting data and keeping it for a specific task is risky. It invariably does not get updated and changes rarely find their way back into the originating system.

When information is consistently produced from a source system, it is ensured to have been checked by every level of the organisation. It is the equivalent of having many data auditors cleansing the information daily. Assuming that ‘principle one’ is fairly robust, the data will be used and owned by the whole organisation.

In addition to systems integration, any processes should be streamlined and integrated to meet the requirements of the central system, without duplication. When developing a process, any connecting processes should also be considered.

Principle three: The data is always correct

A strange statement for some people to understand, but a very powerful message for senior managers to send. The principle behind this message is that you must only use centrally produced data to make decisions.

If anyone in the organisation finds data to be incorrect then the central system needs to be corrected immediately. This places the data at the heart of the organisation and enables staff to have confidence when using centrally produced data, knowing that others have also used and cleansed it where necessary.

Principle four: No decisions should be made without reference to validated information

All performance indicators and monitoring reports must be output from the central system. This again reinforces principle three and ensures that if an important decision needs to be made, the organisation has captured, used and validated that information previously. Any decision can be made without questioning, in detail, the validity of the information; as it is known that this information has already been used to run the organisation.

Michael Haworth, Senior Consultant,
Tribal