Local options within HN awards

Around this time last year, I wrote about local options within HN awards. I also raised local options in my last two update letters.

Local options permit colleges to customise (to a certain extent) HN awards to meet local demands. For example, a college with a large software development company nearby may want to add more programming units to an award.

We used to change frameworks on an ad hoc basis but the number of requests increased to the extent that I changed the procedure so that the QST considers each request, and we update the frameworks annually (for the start of term). However, you don't need to wait a year to find out if your request is successful. The QST can consider your request pretty quickly and you will get a response within a week or two (normally). But the framework will only change once per year.

Computing is one of the few subjects still to offer local options. Most have dropped this feature. I think it's a good idea but it was becoming time consuming to constantly change frameworks. This new procedure seems to work well.

Contact Caroline if you want to know more about local options within HN awards.