This blog is a (much!) less-than-formal outlining of recent travels, events, happenings, thoughts and comments which tend to have some occupational relevance, but are on occasion nothing more than a means of passing the time while waiting for trains, planes & automobiles...

Monday, 7 September 2009

Strategic Priorities Conference

Having now agreed to be party to the organisation of a national conference for HE/FE - this blog entry exists only to publicise the date & venue, December 10th, Queens Hotel, Leeds.

Working with EIAT Consultancy it's going to bring together expertise and experience to assist colleges in developing their strategies to manage risk through informed choice.

More details to follow on both the main PlayingwithLearning website, and the EIAT one, but I'll be helping to set it up, publicising it to the world (you heard it here first!) & running workshops on the day.

Thursday, 3 September 2009

It's Grim up North (& South, & West & East probably)

Am now sitting waiting for my train home after delivering a day's staff development for a college management team & reflecting on how I don't miss the annual nightmare of enrolment week.

I think everybody working in education would agree that the treatment students receive at enrolment informs their impression of what to expect on their course and needs to be a positive one, but while we've been coccooned from the world in our team building workshop, prospective students have been in the main hall getting agitated by not being able to get answers to their questions as the poor lecturing staff on the desks are repeatedly interrogated on courses about which they know nothing.

Don't have an answer as to how colleges can solve this problem without securing increased funding, but until some system (on-line enrolments? in-depth FAQs? Admission Tutors? available ex-students?) is put into place, they'll always be considered as inefficient by their local community in comparison to any local HEI, even if the course delivery/management is in reality far better.