Not a single Polytechnic student has enrolled

With only a little over a week to go before many Polytechnic students disappear off campus you would think that management would be trying to enrol as many studetns as it possibly could for next year.

You would think so.

The truth is that the Polytechnic will finish this year without a single student actually enrolled for next year. There are no enrolment forms yet for students to complete. Instead students are being asked to complete an “Intention to Enrol” form. This form does not actually lock a student into a course, or provide them with any certainty that they will have a place. It only provides a student with the opportunity to state that they have an intention to enrol.

To go with this form is a “Suitability Interview” form. This is another form that students fill out with much the same information as the Intention form. This is also not an enrolment form. In fact their suitability has to be Confirmed before they can proceed to actually enrol. Of course, places will be given according to the priority list that was circulated earlier in the year.

Enrolment will not happen until the new year, probably late in January. Students who previously would have been able to enrol in a TAFE course for the following year had some assurity of their place. They also could usually get a Confirmation of Enrolment form for Centrelink so that they could continue getting their student benefits over the Christmas break. How are these students going to be able to demonstrate to Centrelink that they are continueing their studies in 2010? They will not be able to get anything official from the Polytechnic.

The enrolment process is a farce. If the Polytechnic management were serious about attracting students they would be at least trying to keep the students they have currently by assuring them a place next year.