Early Alert System for Detection of At-Risk Students

Retention and success of students are critical factors determining the effectiveness of an institution of higher education. Student retention is significant, considering the prevailing environments of accountability and budgetary constraints.[1]. In this context, institutions of higher education must take measures that will enhance student retention. The conditions that lead to early exit of students must be remedied and actions should be taken to improve student success. This paper considers the academic system at Higher Colleges of Technology, U.A.E and proposes an early- alert system that will help to identify “at-risk” students in under-graduate level programs and assign appropriate peer-tutoring support to such students. An early-alert system can catch the problem when it is still solvable, and the student still has a chance to improve his/her performance. A well-established peer-tutoring system in the institution can take-over at this point to give the necessary academic support to the identified students. A manual, early-alert system that can be automated is detailed in this paper. This early-alert system, ifimplemented along with the supporting peer-tutoring system at any educational institution, should increase academic success for students, which in turn, should increase student retention. This, therefore should benefit all the stakeholders at large.