Tier 4 licence holders need to reduce their risks as QAA opens investigation in two London colleges

London, UK (PRWEB UK) 17 February 2014

Following the BBC Panorama investigation which exposed alarming fraud in the UK Student Visa system for overseas students, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) has opened investigations into the standards and quality of higher education at Eden College International and Leyton College. (Source: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Newsroom/News/Pages/QAA-opens-Concerns-investigation-into-two-London-colleges.aspx)

The investigations will be carried out through QAA's Concerns scheme in consultation with the Home Office. The findings will be published once they are complete.

BQuTMS, the leading provider of cloud-based Student Attendance Management Systems (SAMS) says this is further proof of increasing pressure on Tier 4 licence holders to provide evidence that they comply with the Home Office requirements for overseas students.

All Tier 4 Licence holders are required to maintain full and complete records of their student’s attendance and engagement and to be able to provide their records immediately if required.

Most organisations run systems that are very costly and ineffective.

The vast majority of Tier 4 licence holders use manual data collection and processing, with a plethora of spreadsheets to collate and analyse this vital information. This is extremely labour intensive and costly, very prone to error and takes too long to produce data, which cannot be relied upon.

This situation was highlighted by a recent survey of Higher Education providers by BQuTMS entitled “Best Practices Adopted in Student Attendance Management UK 2013” - http://blog.bqutms.com/survey-results-survey-on-student-attendance-data-collection.

Installing a good Student Attendance Management System (SAMS) solves all of these issues by gathering the attendance data electronically and making it instantly available in an easy to read form, highlighting any students whose attendance or engagement gives cause for concern.

Full and comprehensive student attendance and engagement records are created without any intervention form staff, freeing up time to be able to focus on tasks that add value to their employer, rather than data processing.

The evidence needed for Tier 4 licence purposes is instantly and always available in real time, ensuring full and complete compliance at all times.

The system makes communicating with the student simple and quick via SMS, email, letter and phone and stores records of all communications to ensure easy and cost effective evidence of compliance for Tier 4 purposes.

This has the effect of improving revenues from students. Student Attendance Management Systems (SAMS) provide a cost effective way to quickly and effectively improve an organisation’s finances.

Staff can actively intervene early and make a big difference to reducing dropout rates, which has an enormous impact on increasing the retained revenues.

A good Student Attendance Management Systems (SAMS) can quickly add value to any institution. Attendance and engagement data is gathered, collated and processed in real time, saving hundreds of hours of staff efforts.

Information on unauthorised absences and late attendance (both highly significant indicators of potential dropout candidates) is highlighted to responsible staff, who can then view the context of the student’s overall attendance history and contact the student by text message, email, telephone or letter through the SAMS there and then.

Without a good system, the same process takes several weeks, by which time the problem is likely to have become entrenched and therefore insoluble.

Additionally, an effective Student Attendance Management System, which operates in real time, ensures that issues are identified proactively and quickly.

An effective Student Attendance Management System can deliver 4 key benefits for educational institutions:
1. Improved Student Experience by identifying ‘at-risk’ students in a timely manner
2. Increased revenues through improved student retention
3. Lower administrative costs
4. Tier 4 Licence compliance

BQuSAMS (Student Attendance Management System) ensures that users can easily implement their Student Attendance Policy, helping to improve attendance and engagement, improving the student experience and compliance with Tier 4 licence obligations in an efficient and cost effective manner.

A good Student Attendance Management System (SAMS) will produce accurate data to evidence the engagement and progress made by their students and enables cost effective reporting to their stakeholders.

BQuSAMS has proven to be one of the best and most cost effective cloud-based solutions available for the UK educational sector, which faces the dual challenges of financial hardship and compliance. BQuSAMS enables both to be met and overcome effectively. Further details are available at http://www.bqutms.com/overview.

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