The Programs of Study Function

Graduation Requirements

Most jurisdictions require students to take a certain number of units and certain types of classes in order to graduate with a degree.  These requirements will be collectively called a program of study.  Normally, students meet with a counselor, who explains to them the courses they need to take to meet their educational objectives, then it is the student's responsibility to enroll in the courses. The counselor provides oversight and checks the student is on track.  This is time intensive and prone to error.  In reality, the specific classes a student takes can be pre-determined based on the educational objective.

The PEMS was designed to allow administrators to plan out a set of classes (such at Algebra I, World History, English, and so on)  that the student will take over thea coursemulti-year oftime frame.  Once a gradestudent span.is assigned a plan, there is no need for the student to pick classes every term.  AThe gradeplan spanitself coversensures multipleall years of schoolingrequirements and representsauto-enrollment aensures planning horizon wherethe student objectivesis taking the right courses when they need to.  However, plans can be achieved.changed and manually adapted as student change their objectives.

The core functionalityPrograms of theStudy PEMSFunction is to allowallows administrators the ability to pre-plan any number of "programs of study", which are called plans inside of the PEMS.  The student can then be assigned a plan, which provides the information needed to auto-enroll the student in classes every term until the plan is complete.

ThisPEMS approachmakes differsan from many otherenrollment record keepingfor approaches.every Inclass mostthe countries,student studentsneeds areto assignedtake subjects,under suchthe asplan, English,then Math, History and so on,relates that theyenrollment mustrecord take in every year, and there is only only curriculum or syllabus that a school provides into the subjectfuture forstudent thatterm graderecords.  level.  This is the same approach taken in the US for Grades K through 8, but not for the high school years, grade 9 through 12. In High school, students pick their individual classes each term, much like University level education.

An unfortunate disadvantage to allowing students to pick their own classes is that they might not meet all the graduation requirements.  In creating a plan instead of picking individual classes, the administrator can ensure that students are meeting their various requirements for graduation. And by enrolling a student in a plan, the administrator ensures the student meets the requirements.  By creating multiple compliant plans, a school can offer a great deal of customization in the program, while ensuring all requirements are met.

A plan is not just a list of courses required to meet graduation requirements, a plan sets out which class must be taken in which term.

When students are picking and choosing their classes, many technologies are unable to provide an instant assessment on whether the student will complete their graduation requirements.  With this approach, at any point in time, a student's enrollment records can be viewed as a whole. And because each record is marked complete/incomplete, one can immediately asses a student's progress towards their academic goals.