I find this whole set up unsatisfactory. We do not have
second semester starters except on part-time courses.
However we have similar problems with full-time students
who follow exceptional routes to their award. It is the
norm in most cases that all students on a given full-time
programme in a given year of study have the same term
dates. However there are exceptions to this rule. In the
old system an institution could write to an LEA about a
particular exceptional student and that LEA would make an
adjustment to the student's award. In the new scheme LEAs
refuse to do this if that student's attendance dates differ
from those reported on the SLC cd-rom. The SLC advise that
a new non-UCAS code be developed to specifically deal with
these cases. Given that change of course forms would then
have to be completed at the start and the end of the
student's exceptional year, this all adds up to a mountain
of bureaucracy to deal with what used to be a relatively
simple matter. Indeed the reporting of course changes which
do not lead to a change in attendance dates currently
produces a significant unnecessary workload on Registries
and a consequent delay, given the extra tier of reporting
to SLC via LEA, in the payment of the public contribution
of fees to institutions.
Gary Walker
Head
Student and Examinations Division
University of Liverpool


On Fri, 30 Mar 2001 10:37:02 +0000 George Hardie Law
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues
>
> Can anyone shed light on the procedures relating to
> Semester B first year starters and the term date
> requirements for the HEI database.
>
> It would appear that in the past, many LEA's simply stated
> Semester B starters from the start of the Spring Term rather
> than the from the start date of Semester B. This would of
> course be strictly incorrect and the student's loan
> would be assessed as a higher rate. However, the
> tuition fee would not be affected.
>
> I recently spoke to an LEA who demanded that I include
> term dates for a student starting in Semester B. I
> explained at length that the student has started in
> Semester B and not the course. I was also advised by the
> HEI helpline at the SLC to provide term dates for Semester B
> students. I finally stated that the student started in
> February 5 and them ran off a set of dates that reflected
> the term system.
>
> As we all are aware term dates are different from semester
> dates. It would appear that the SLC help line and the LEA I
> spoke failed to grasp this concept. Shouldn't the SLC adopt
> the modular timetable in any case?
>
> The SLC also suggested that we provide February start
> dates, and subsequent terms dates, for all our courses.
>
> Has anyone else come across this problem or does the
> DfEE/SLC guidelines account for this scenario.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> George H Law
> Deputy Head of Student Records and Awards Unit
> University of North London
> Tel 020 7753 32576

----------------------
[log in to unmask]