Academic and Student Matters Risk

The professor knew that his student, who was interested in risk, would be coming to class early to again ask about risk. He then wondered about what he would speak about. He thought that an interesting, and relevant, topic for his student would be risk relating to academic and student matters.

The Risk Process

The professor thought that he should go back to basics and decided to go through the risk management process with his student, starting with the identification of risk, then the assessment, then the treatment and finally the monitoring and controlling of it.

Identification of Risk

He then sought to identify several key risks and remembered that the International Risk Management Standard ISO 31000: 2018 provided numerous ways to do this. However, he took a shortcut – he went to his employer’s latest Risk Register. He wanted to speak about risks that his higher education organisation faced, as he felt that his student would find it easier to understand.

Academic Matters

The risk register had several risks regarding academic matters. One was Academic Quality Assurance that was compromised due to an absence of benchmarking. He noticed on the Risk Register that likelihood of this occurring was deemed to be very low, but the consequence very high. Clearly, this was a risk and the professor wanted to explain this to the student. He observed that the organisation saw this matter was of an ongoing concern and implemented audit reviews. The results are then provided to the Academic Senate and the Board of Directors. He saw that the risk mitigation strategy was - proactive involvement in a range of local, national and international benchmarking activities, and membership of higher education industry bodies to conduct industry-wide benchmarking. He also noted that there would be continued use of external advisors and independent reviewers. He felt that this would be a good example of a risk that needs to be carefully monitored.

Student Matters

The professor thought that he should give the student another example. The first one related to the organisation, but now he wanted to focus on the student. He noted that the risk register had several risks regarding student matters, one of which was Maintaining eResources. The professor felt that the need for correct maintenance of the eLibrary was vital as students need access to a library of substance, as the days of maintaining a physical library are now gone. The professor recalled that the Maintaining eResources likelihood risk rating was low because there was a low likelihood that the eResources provided would not be adequate for the needs of the students. However, there was a moderate risk consequence to the organisation if the one provided was not adequately maintained. He remembered that his colleagues spoke about the need for proper maintenance and the procedure used was that audits were performed and the audit results were ultimately reported to the Academic Senate and the Board of Directors.

Risk Awareness Is Vital

Running a higher education institution is like running any other business. There are rules and regulations to follow. When one considers business in general there are some highly regulated businesses, and others which are less regulated and indeed some with not much regulation at all. Higher education is one where there is substantial regulation, and it changes often, and often quickly. There are significant risks of non-compliance with the regulations. This is not only in academic and student matters but in many other areas as well. Hence any higher education institution needs specialist resources to be able to comply with the everchanging compliance regulations, as non-compliance could be fatal.