A business analytics firm has been hired to help Edinburgh’s Telford College to reduce its student drop-out rates.

Barrachd, a UK provider of business analytics solutions, will build a system to analyse a variety of personal factors from each Telford student’s background, including age, qualifications, number of student associations joined and travel time to college, and assess attendance rates.

This will allow the college to predict those students at the highest risk of dropping out and target individuals, rather than using a “one size fits all” approach.

“We wanted to introduce a tool that would help identify and help learners before they drop out,” said Lisa Dawson, the college’s information systems manager.

julia.belgutay@tess.co.uk.