Preston College busts enrolment queues with new Tribal software

With approximately 20,000 students studying at Preston College, managing student records and enrolling learners efficiently is key to the college’s smooth running

[ClickPress, Thu Jul 19 2007] The college put Tribal’s ebs4 management information system to the test at the first of its summer face-to-face enrolment sessions in June, ahead of the main enrolment fortnight in August/September. The trial was a great success and over 700 students were enrolled in just one day.

The wide range of courses available and the flexibility of study options at Preston College make it a complex management environment. Students can study full or part-time and choose from over 30 AS/A level subjects, a wide range of vocational courses, adult basic education, higher education and apprenticeship training. Over 50,000 qualifications were delivered in 2005/06.

At the June enrolment day, staff manned 24 PCs where they helped students to enrol, pay fees, have their photo taken, and receive a learning agreement and an ID card. As a web-based system, ebs4 requires no intervention from IT services to deploy it across multiple terminals, making mass enrolment days easy to administer in IT terms.

Jeremy Harrison, Head of Information Services at the college, comments, “The new enrolment process was very slick and smooth, offering students a first class administrative service and introduction to the college. The new ebs4 software proved to be both reliable and effective and paying by direct debit was simpler than ever.”

Behind the scenes, ebs integrates with back office systems such as finance to ensure that double data entry is not required. The college used the configurability in ebs4 to design the enrolment screens so that staff only saw the fields they needed to complete. Setting mandatory fields, which had to be completed for successful enrolment, made the process more straightforward for administrative staff and ensured all relevant information was gathered at once.

Tribal works with over 30 per cent of further education colleges in the UK, providing software and services including management information systems, IT audits and specialist CPD training. Clients include Newcastle College, Highbury College and Westminster Adult Education Service.

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Notes to editors:

Preston College
1. Preston College is a large tertiary college serving a population of 250,000 in the City of Preston and the surrounding area of central Lancashire. Students are drawn from the local area, nationally and overseas. The college employs 1250 staff.

2. The college provides courses in all areas of learning, except land-based qualifications. In 2005/06 the college delivered over 50,000 qualifications and a sizeable proportion of courses are available on a part-time or evening basis.

3. The college has used previous versions of ebs since 2002.

Tribal
1. Tribal is one of the most successful companies supporting the public sector in the UK today. We are a leading provider of professional support services, offering a range of consultancy and delivered services. Our turnover is over £250 million and we employ over 2,000 people from a regional network of offices. Our services are grouped into the following areas: consulting, technology, resourcing, education, property and communications.

2. Our services are provided to over 2,500 public sector organisations, predominantly within education; health and social care; local government, housing and regeneration; and central government. We work with 80 per cent of secondary schools; 75 per cent of local authorities; 95 per cent of further education colleges; 90 per cent of strategic health authorities; and 75 per cent of NHS trusts.

For further information, please contact the Tribal Group communications team on 01285 886020 or by email: media@tribalgroup.co.uk

For further information, interview requests or interviews, please contact:
Catherine Dhanjal, TheAnswer Ltd Tel: 01883 650434 or 0794 166 9925
Email: catherine.dhanjal@theansweruk.com

TA-431 19 July 2007

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Catherine Dhanjal, MCIPR
TheAnswer Ltd
PR & marketing specialist
Tel: 01883 650434 or 0794 166 9925

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