Improving Timely Submissions and Completion Rates Through Deadlines

Improving timely submissions and completion rates through deadlines.

Many centres find it challenging to get learners to hand in on time and this can cause a knock on effect on completions, but also the time centre teams dedicate to assessment and verification processes. It is common for those learners who hand in late, to either fail to hand in at all or not complete the full qualification that they signed up for.

When learner in cohorts fail to hand in at the same time, this presents some issues regarding opportunities for malpractice offenses and standardisation. This increases the IV requirements as the validity and authenticity of a piece of work will require much more investigation.

It is important to note that whilst the registration period for CMI qualifications is either 1 year or 3 years, this does not mean that the learner should take this amount of time. As centres, you need to be clear how much support you will offer and for how long.

A robust tracking document should be used to track submission dates, late submissions, and results at each submission. We have an example on our website that you can use and enhance if needed. {Tracy to insert link}

Below are some ideas for encouraging learners to hand in on time and improve your completion rates. They are not mandatory but we do recommend you consider implementing a firm approach to setting and controlling assessment hand-in deadlines. Please note these are based on observations during Quality reviews. If you would like some further guidance, do contact your Quality Manager.

What? / Why?
Implement an Exceptional Circumstances policy which requires learner to request extensions to set assignment submission deadlines via a formal process, in writing and with supporting evidence at least two weeks before the deadline. / This requires learners to seriously plan for their assessments. The evidence requirement helps to eradicate those who simply ran out of time and could be something like an email from their boss.
We find that centres who have and enforce such a policy rarely get requests and have higher completion rates. Additionally the majority of learners will submit on time because they don’t believe that handing in late is an option.
Handing in late also requires much more in depth investigations by the assessor and verifier regarding authenticity and validity.
Set fairly short deadlines of between 2-4 weeks from the date you set the assignment. / This means that the assessment will be prioritised in the learner’s life. Longer deadlines can be de-motivating and often result in the assessment not being prioritised. Also learning is fresh and learners benefit most of support.
Centre who have short deadlines tend to get more learners who submit their work on time,
When working with companies/clients, make sure they commit to supporting the learners on the programme and become involved with the topics and deadlines given. / If the learners don’t feel there will be any repercussions if they don’t submit, some make take this option. If the company is monitoring and checking progress and achievement, this can help you to get timely submissions and higher completions.
Charge a fair fee for late submissions – make sure this is clear to the learners/companies before they sign up though. / Learners and companies will often find this very motivating and will submit on time as a result.
Be clear about the date you will be submitting all learner work for moderation/marking to CMI / Most learners are unaware that we offer on demand marking and moderation and your administration processes take time. You can set your own deadlines for moderation/marking administration at your centre. If you give them a definitive deadline for final submission, you are likely to get more work sent in.

Remember, if learners withdraw from your programmes, let us know, we can easily remove them from your centre. If learners lapse then it will affect your centres’ completion rates, whereas if they are withdrawn actively by the centre they do not.

Also, if learners fail to complete all of their units required for a qualification, you can reduce the size of the qualification to reflect what they have achieved. You can do this by contacting our Education Provider Team at Corby.

If you have any other ideas for improving timely submissions and getting completions, we would really like to hear them. Please email your Quality Manager and we will review it and see if we can share it with other centres.