Participation Summaries

1) Student Retention Rates and Optimal Numbers
We were encouraged by the general trends we observed in our analysis of these three years of record keeping.

One of our main goals in implementing a 50/50 Management style was to increase the retention rate in our program and there was certainly evidence of this happening. In order for it to happen, however, there needed to be an adjustment in overall numbers. We could not continue to intake large numbers of students and tutors each year and expect to be able to give them the quality of support necessary to keep them in the program.

2) Inactive Tutors and Students
Our efforts to stay in touch more consistently with matched pairs and to ensure that they were working together regularly also paid off in terms of seeing a big reduction in the numbers of students termed "inactive». This is a somewhat grey area where students may sit for several months and then often decide to withdraw. We felt that we had been more successful in preventing students from lingering in this category for too long and actually helping them to remain active in the program. This may also have had an impact on the "completed" category; fewer people, perhaps, were ready to move on because they were satisfied with their program of work.

As with the students, we saw a significant increase in the percentage of tutors in both the new and returned categories remaining active over the three years. In fact although our overall numbers of tutors in 1994 was only three quarters of the numbers in 1992, the number (as well as percentage) of active tutors was higher in 1994 than in 1992. Similarly, the percentage of inactive tutors was more than halved over three years.

In short, both our student and tutor participation summaries demonstrated a significant movement in the direction of retention of tutoring pairs in the program. Our efforts to direct more of our energies and human resources to the support focus had brought positive results and we felt that we were well on our way to becoming a more efficient and cost-effective organization.