We’re big believers in creating a zero-friction admissions and enrolment experiences for future TAFE students. That’s not just because we think we can (and we do think we can), it’s because there are some very good reasons why this should be a consideration into the future.  

There are a lot of parts to a zero-friction experience. It includes the TAFE website journey, the ease with which students can peruse information, start applications, ask for and receive assistance, proceed to payment, and become enrolled in the experience they’ve signed up for.

Here’s three innovations we think will reduce friction for admissions teams into the future.

1. Student profile portability  

Much of the experience TAFEs will create for future students will come back to rich student profiles. It is the data we have on students that will enable us to use technology to personalise the student journey, whether that’s in learning, work placements, services or other areas. 

Student profile portability will play a big role in admissions. We believe it will soon evolve to better support student profile portability across platforms; a student will be able to carry their learning history with them and use that to accelerate the application and admission process. 

We foresee ‘digital learning records’ or ‘passports’ as likely in the future, and we believe the student management systems will facilitate this. A comprehensive roll out of the Unique Student Identifier (USI) in Australia may make this more readily possible locally. 

As part of our ecosystem strategy, ReadyTech is continuing to invest in our web service (API) to support streamlined admissions. This will underpin the ability of TAFEs to utilise portable profiles to supercharge Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) into the future. 

2. Student pipeline management 

TAFEs with strong student volumes have a good problem. Their education offering is in demand, and they are most likely delivering outcomes. But whether or not student volumes are high, managing the pipeline more effectively would support an enhanced admissions function. 

We see that admissions could take into account net new students coming through admissions for the first time, continuing students moving from one teaching period to the next and students who were exiting to create a better picture of the student pipeline being managed.

A view like this would overlay sales pipelines (leads and applications in flight) to display projected volumes against targets and capacity limits. These analytics would represent a material difference and allow an uplift in service for students, sponsors and agents. 

3. AI-enabled recognition 

RPL is not as effective as it could be across the (VET) sector as a whole. The future is likely to involve better recognition of both the structured learning that students have undertaken, as well as the unstructured learning undertaken through work or other modes of learning. 

For example, ReadyTech has a prototype in flight that can use AI to ‘read’ resumes, transcripts and other documents and convert that into text. This expedites the process of capturing past learning and experience for credit and RPL. In future, it could ‘read’ documents and extract the content to make it usable by TAFE admissions teams for things like search and validation.  

This will support stronger admissions processes. And why not? We are already auto-processing applications based on custom configured (complex) rules and serving recommendations in other applications at ReadyTech. Why shouldn’t educators have this in their arsenal? 

Admissions consistency will come through innovation 

The admissions experience made available across the education market right now could probably be described as inconsistent. The future is likely to bring much more consistency of experience for students, thanks to admissions being supported by innovative technologies. 

We believe this will create a zero-friction experience for a student, with cues taken from similar service experiences in other industries such as online retail or travel. Students will be able to search and find what they want with little to no compromise and apply online without barrier. 

Find out more about how ReadyTech supports TAFEs with next generation student management technology. Click here.