1.
6.4.4
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to prepare students to take the professional examinations following the completion of the College programme. This clearly reveals the comparison with the Polytechnic course where at the end of Year 2 students have completed the Foundation Stage and Professional I and II of the Association.
Year 5 of the course has not been developed. Year 3 and 4 could be broadly acceptable as a structure, but they had been adapted and amended by the Dean who himself stated that some of the syllabuses were in areas with which he was not familiar and that the book selection reflected syllabuses and book lists he had seen elsewhere. The Law component appeared competent and imaginative and the part-time member of staff concerned is to be complimented.
6.4.5 In general the Accounting major is highly mechanistic,
there are no defined or agreed methods of assessment and, as previously stated, no Examination Board in existence although such Boards are described in the College general papers.
6.5
6.5.1
6.5.2
Discussion with staff teaching the Secretarial Management Programme
There is one member of staff and one graduate assistant concerned with this area. The objective was the development of skills and they had not significantly changed the syllabus from the previous Diploma. Student entry was based on the requirement for 'A' level in secretarial skills and one other 'A' level; Use of English was necessary. The new Secretarial Management programme had not yet been introduced and the staff were not able to answer questions about expected standards at 'A' level. They thought that about 10 of their present year 2 students and 40-50 from outside would enter the new course when it was offered. The major selection requirement was competence in skills subjects which staff felt was the primary factor really concerning employers. English was regarded as of secondary importance.
Students entered the course with speeds of 40 w.p.m. in typewriting and 80 w.p.m. in shorthand. By Year 4 they would attain 60 w.p.m. in typewriting and 100-120 in shorthand. The skills standard attained was, therefore, comparable to that in the Trilingual Secretarial Diploma at the Polytechnic although students entering the Polytechnic were not expected to have competence in the skills on entry.