London, UK – BQu TMS, the time management specialist is delighted to announce the market launch of their biometric Student Attendance Management System (SAMS). The system has been designed specifically to support Higher Education institutions to comply with United Kingdom Borders Agency (UKBA) requirements for managing and evidencing their student’s attendance. The system delivers fast and reliable information on a cost effective basis, offering outstanding value for money.
A new biometric Student Attendance Management System (SAMS) launches to the UK University sector following its successful implementation in the private education sector.
Organisations that are unable to provide acceptable evidence of attendance in accordance with their sponsor duties, are at grave risk of losing their ‘Highly Trusted Status’, which enables them to sponsor overseas students (from outside of EU) to come to the UK to study. There was a recent high profile situation where a University’s licence to sponsor students was withdrawn by UKBA, with disastrous consequences, when the University was unable to satisfy UKBA of the efficacy of their processes and controls.
The BQu SAMS was originally designed as an effective solution for privately owned educational institutions operating in the UK. This sector was the first to face the challenge of compliance with UKBA’s new powers and regulations, designed to reduce the numbers of apparently bogus students travelling to the UK.
In order to remain in the business of delivering education to overseas students, organisations had to comply with a range of sponsor duties, including monitoring attendance. Many failed to do so and had their licences revoked. The key question was how they could gather and monitor the required student attendance information in a way that was cost effective without taking up the valuable time of academic and administrative staff.
Solutions involving sign in sheets, registers and swipe card systems are all open to abuse and error. They take up the time of staff and students and in many cases have proved unacceptable to the UKBA. A system based on biometrics, where the data can be gathered quickly, efficiently and easily, and also provides unequivocal evidence of a student’s attendance has provided the solution.
Existing biometric systems have proved to be expensive to implement and required additional infrastructure for the data recording devices. In addition to the high upfront and running costs, there were considerable requirements for staff time to administrate the systems, to write and generate reports.
Costs were a key consideration for colleges who wished to continue to take overseas students. The additional costs associated with UKBA compliance as well as meeting the requirements of education oversight bodies have caused that financial resource requests to be re-examined in detail, to ensure that they are justified and can deliver value.
BQu took their state of the art ‘Cloud’ based Time Management System and used it as foundation to deliver a full solution for a system which enables HE institutions to monitor, manage and record all required student attendance information, without the need for capital, hardware or infrastructure expenditure.
The system uses finger print scanners for students to register for a contact event and a central control dashboard provides instant information on any late or missing students. This enables administrators to prioritise and focus their time where it is needed and to take action accordingly. High, Medium and Low Risk categories aid the ability of the responsible staff to ensure they are in control and to provide reports and evidence whenever required.
Late or missing students are automatically flagged up immediately to the responsible administrative staff so that they can take appropriate action. The system reports in ‘real time’. This means that a student’s whereabouts can be ascertained and reported on at all times, providing complete confidence that the organisation is always able to fulfil compliance requirements for Attendance Management and reporting. Automatic messages are sent to the students concerned and a full evidence trail is recorded in the system.
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.
BQu SAMS has proven to be one of the best and most cost effective biometric cloud-based solutions available for privately owned organisations and now it is launching to the UK University sector, which faces the same problem of maintaining their UKBA licence. Further details are available at http://www.bqutms.com/
Contact: Ian Pack, BQu, +447730797094
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