News
New Year message to all St Patrick's students and staff, old and new, from Raj Kumaran, Director of Education
Monday 6th February, 2012
I hope you have all enjoyed the Christmas and New Year holidays and had a chance to relax. I wish you all a belated Happy New Year. The New Year is traditionally a time to look back and take stock of the year just ended as well as an opportunity to look forward to the year ahead, and I should like to do both of those things.
First of all I should like to welcome in the New Year 2012 and the new term. I hope it will be a better year for us than was 2011. Last year was a difficult one for all of us. There were many and frequent changes to the external environment, particularly to the UKBA rules, not all of which were helpful to the private college sector. Both the College and our students had little time to adjust to the new circumstances and the new rules. Let us hope that in the coming year we all have more stability and fewer changes.
Secondly I should like to welcome all our existing St Patrick’s students back to the College for the new term beginning in February. You will see some changes to our College this year, but I firmly believe that these are positive changes, very much to our advantage. In brief we shall be joined by a number of new students who were previously studying at other colleges which have now closed. St Patrick’s has offered many of these students the chance to continue their studies with us, so you can expect to see a number of new faces. Please do your best to make them feel welcome. We shall also be joined by some new members of staff from those colleges, and I am sure you will make them feel welcome too. We have used the opportunity afforded by our partial takeover of these colleges to expand our library facilities, and to introduce some new courses in Art & Design.
To our new students and staff joining us, whether through our normal St Patrick’s recruitment procedures or as a result of our partial takeover of their colleges, I extend a warm welcome to the St Patrick’s family. Please do not be shy to ask if you require information or assistance. We pride ourselves on being a friendly college, and any member of staff will be pleased to help you, or direct to someone who can best deal with your query.
All of us know that the private college sector went through a difficult period in 2011. I am pleased to say that St Patrick’s College not only survived a difficult year, but actually enhanced its position by obtaining Highly Trusted Status with the UKBA, and becoming the first independent College to voluntarily undergo the IQER process under the auspices of the UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). We successfully completed the Development Engagement (DE) stage of this process last summer and we are looking forward to the Summative Review (SR) stage in September 2012. Now that we have been joined by a significant number of new students we have used the opportunity to expand the range of courses we offer and the facilities available for our students: there is more work to be done over this term and next to meet the expectations of the SR. We will work closely with each member of staff and our students to ensure that we obtain the best possible outcome from this QAA review so that we can all celebrate our achievements and successes – making all of us proud!
The College is set for a period of expansion in the immediate future. We are developing new relationships with Universities and intend to introduce many more new courses over the next few months. That does not of course mean that we shall relax our high standards in any way. Quite the reverse. We shall continue to work closely with the UKBA to monitor the attendance and progress of our students and to ensure that the College and our students comply with all the relevant rules. We are a serious academic institution and we are fully aware of our responsibilities as a Highly Trusted Sponsor. We shall continue to serve our students with professionalism, integrity and the highest possible quality of educational experience. In return we expect our students to attend all classes punctually and regularly, and to explain any absences at the earliest opportunity, providing written evidence such as medical certificates where appropriate. We also expect you to keep the College informed of changes to your contact details, and personal circumstances such as your visa status.
Over the last few months we have also made significant investment in improving STPonline (stponline.co.uk), our own virtual learning environment (VLE) and the Student Information System (stpsis.net), where you can manage your own personal details, print letters, make payments and more. Both these systems can be accessed from anywhere in the world, giving you the flexibility and putting you in control. All new students receive official email addresses from the College so you can be kept informed of important announcements and messages concerning your studies and social activities. I urge you to make active use of these resources.
St Patrick’s has also been approved by the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) for student finance purposes. This means British (Home) and EU students can apply for grants and loans for studying (tuition fees support) at St Patrick’s and living costs (maintenance). We have already seen a number of Home students benefiting from this facility and joining St Patrick’s. We expect the number of Home/EU applications to increase significantly for our September 2012 intake (when higher tuition fees of up to £9,000 are introduced by Universities) as St Patrick’s will continue to maintain lower fee levels by comparison, and because St Patrick’s has also joined UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admission Service), we anticipate an increase in applications from British, European and overseas students in general.
We will continue to work tirelessly towards making St Patrick’s a greater place to study and would like you to contribute in every way you can too.
So welcome again to 2012 and to the new term. Let us all work together to make it a successful term, and to lay the foundations for successful 2012 and beyond.
Raj Kumaran
Director of Education
