London, UK (PRWEB UK) 4 July 2013 -- BQuTMS time and attendance management software has introduced features in their time management system to provide a financial lifeline for UK universities at threat of closure or merger.
A recently published survey by PA Consulting Group showed that 77% of the university leaders interviewed believed a number of universities will fail or go bankrupt as a result of government higher-education reforms and dwindling student applications.
Against this background, organisations should be looking to achieve two key objectives, to protect and enhance their revenues and to reduce their operational costs. In many commercial sectors, this is no longer a simple matter, as the drive for efficiency and cost down year on year has been an established modus operandi for over 20 years.
In the Higher Education sector, there are some quick and easy to implement solutions, which achieve both objectives.
To protect and enhance revenues, consider the source. The number of students that attend a particular institution has a direct bearing on the University income.
With tuition fees around £9,000 per annum, it is astonishing to discover the student dropout rates and the commensurate loss of income that many universities experience.
The latest available figures from HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency - 2009-10) show that the 20 universities in England and Wales with the worst dropout rates average 14.4%, almost twice the UK average of 7.4%.
In monetary terms, the revenue loss from early leavers would equate to £491m between those 20 universities, or £24.55m each.
It has been demonstrated that with good policies, processes and procedures, it is possible to identify those students who are at risk of early exit soon enough to be able to take positive action. This enables staff to deploy effective mechanisms to support and encourage those individuals, thereby dramatically reducing the risk of the student dropping out.
University of Huddersfield say that in their first year of operating a new system, they have retained 300 students on programme through effective intervention at the right time. That is protecting revenues of £3m per annum. It is also 300 students who will complete their study programmes and attain their desired qualifications, who will extol the virtues of the organisation that supported and encouraged them, rather than ignored and abandoned them.
The fees paid by students from overseas are a key revenue source for most UK universities. There are strict immigration rules and regulations introduced by UKBA and enforced by the Home Office in respect of overseas students. In order to sponsor the overseas visitors, each university must hold a Tier 4 licence. Included in the obligations for tier 4 licence holders is a requirement to monitor each student’s engagement and to be able to provide evidence that the students are continuing their studies. This has to be supported by a robust Attendance Monitoring Policy and underpinned with evidence that the policy is being strictly followed and implemented.
In order to avoid claims of discrimination or differential treatment, most universities have to monitor all their students’ attendance and engagement.
80 UK universities have student populations numbering between 15,000 and 42,000. Gathering and recording attendance and engagement data is an enormously time consuming task on its own, taking up valuable personnel from both academic and administrative resources. This is before the data is collated and analysed, then reported upon and stored for future reference and to satisfy compliance requirements.
Currently, the vast majority of UK universities use a combination of manual data gathering and recording with the use of registration forms at classes and lectures. The lecturer will record student attention and then the class data will be transferred to an administration department, where it is processed onto spreadsheets. Further collating and amalgamation processing is required across the complete organisation with each school, department and faculty having to carry out similar number crunching. Invariably, because so much of the data depends upon human input, there are mistakes and errors, which make the information unreliable, despite the enormous amounts of time taken to collect it and process it. This makes non-compliance a constant threat and a great cause for concern in any realistic management risk assessment.
In addition, any reported data is historic, by the very nature of the drawn out process. A student who exhibits early warning signs through a change in attendance and engagement behaviours is very easily missed and they can drop out of their studies before anyone has had a chance to do anything about it.
Similarly, some courses have a minimum level of attendance set as criteria for attainment, or even to remain on the course. Again, these criteria can often be transgressed before there is a trigger to enable responsible staff to intervene to take action.
There are IT systems available today that carry out the data gathering, recording, collating, analysing and reporting in real time, without the need for staff involvement. No need for lecturers to take registers, no need for administrative staff to spend their time processing and recording, knowing all the time that the system they are working to is not fit for purpose, with all the stress levels that accrue.
At any given time, an easy to read dashboard displays attendance data, so that the staff can instantly identify any students whose attendance and engagement is below expectation. Then, the system enables efficient communications between staff and student, using SMS, email, phone, or letter, with records being kept to ensure compliance with Tier 4 requirements.
BQuSAMS (Student Attendance Management System) delivers all of these features and more. The system was designed together Immigration regulation experts Veristat http://www.veristat.co.uk/ to ensure that users are compliant with Tier 4 regulations. BQuSAMS also links with widely used Student Management Information and Timetabling systems to ensure that current resource utilisation is optimised.
There is no infrastructure required, as it is a state of the art cloud based system, which uses the latest technologies in clever ways to ensure minimal cost of installation and operation. Data can be gathered via Smart Card readers, Smartphones, tablets, QR and barcode readers and biometric scanners, meaning there is the right option for every organisation.
BQu appreciate that all universities work differently and therefore that the solution needs to fit the way the individual university works. The system provides a framework that can be tailored to suit individual customer requirements, whilst at the same time ensuring that they are able to fully comply with their sponsor duties.
BQuSAMS has proven to be one of the best and most cost effective cloud-based solutions available for the UK University sector, which faces the challenges of financial hardship and compliance. BQuSAMS enables both to be met and overcome effectively. Further details are available at http://www.bqutms.com/.
Jacques de Cock, BQuTMS, http://www.bqutms.com, +442074314597, [email protected]
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