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Tony, It's difficult to comment constructively, since there has been almost total silence from Darlington since they began looking after EU students. The one exception to this silence was last spring when they were supposed to supply HEIs with renewal forms for continuing EU students and with a database for us to use for this purpose. The forms didn't arrive for months, and no one in Darlington seemed to know what was happening or would take responsibility for ensuring that the forms were despatched. The database was hopelessly inadequate: it included students from other institutions in the region, it had misspelled many names, it was in random order, and it did not make clear whether the forms were to be given out to students on the basis of language or country of residence (the number of forms supplied bore little relation to the information on the database, so it was a bit of a guessing game). Since the application process has changed for next year, presumably these particular problems won't arise again. The experience did leave me wondering what was going on at Darlington. On the plus side, however, I dealt with one staff member at Darlington earlier this year about one particular case and she obviously knew what she was talking about and was very helpful, clarifying for me in the process a point in the Student Support Regulations which I hadn't come across before. There is probably a lot of good work going on which one doesn't hear about. So: more in the way of communication would be helpful, and therefore yes, to your question about contact names. The contact names should be used principally for resolving problems. I see no virtue in getting yet more paper in the form of digests of SSINs,etc. since we already get the SSINs and Student Support Updates. If there is something new to be said, however, which isn't likely to appear anywhere else, fine. Or they could use the mailbase. I'm not convinced that getting reports on the progress of applications would be useful. I'll willingly get involved with individual cases if there is a particular problem, as I would with LEAs, but otherwise I don't need to know. We don't get reports from LEAs on the progress of applications for Home students and see no reason why we should for EU students. What would be welcome would be some stability in the applications process itself,rather than a change every year. One other matter: the DfEE booklet "Financial Support for Higher Education Students 2000/2001" ignores British students who are treated as EU students rather than UK Home students, because they live in mainland Europe. The index entry on p. 47 of the booklet doesn't help. (It reads "EU (non-UK) students".) The lack of information has caused confusion amongst prospective British students who live abroad, and I have had lengthy conversations with the parents of several such students. Can the Project Board try to get this clarified, please, for the next edition? Hope this is helpful. Eleanor Martin > -----Original Message----- > From: [log in to unmask] > [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Cullen, Tony > Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 10:12 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: EU student admin > > > I am a member of the DfEE Project Board on EU student matters and > have been > asked by that Board to canvas opinion on a couple of matters across HEIs. > > The DfEE unit at Darlington is anxious for our feedback on > * their performance to date, > * areas where they have fallen below the standard we hoped for > * areas where they have performed well > * how they have performed compared to LEAs and, perhaps most > importantly, > * how they can improve their service to us and to our EU students. > > I visited their offices at Darlington a couple of weeks ago and a > particular > area I discussed with them was that of communication between > Darlington and > HEIs. > > I suggested that they should ask us all to provide the name and > all contact > details of at least one person responsible for day to day admin of EU > student matters, particularly of course, payment of fees. > Would HEIs be prepared to do this? I think it would ease > communication and > help the Darlington people establish some sort of rapport with us so as to > make the whole scheme work better. They could then compile a global e-mail > list of us to which they could send things like periodic digests of > information, summaries of relevant SSINs, a precis of arrangements at the > start of session, reminders of deadlines etc. > > We also discussed the possiblity of the Darlington team sending reports to > each individual HEI on the progress and status of EU applications > so that we > would know for sure how our own students were progressing through the > system. > > I'd be grateful for any views on these areas and anything else you'd like > raised at the Project Board. > > Thanks, > > Tony > **************************************************************** > Tony Cullen > Assistant Registrar (Student Finance) > Imperial College > Room 335 Sherfield Building > Exhibition Road > South Kensington > London > SW7 2AZ > Tel : 0207 594 8008 > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%