Introduction

The aim of this document is to provide advice and guidance in choosing a consultant in field of education. You may be headteacher or principal of a school or college, an officer in a local education authority (LEA) or school district, or director of a private company wishing to undertake work in educational sector. This article focuses mainly on information and communication technology (ICT), but underlying principles also apply more generally.

Using a consultant

Consultants, at least in UK, have a poor reputation as a species, and yet they are in greater demand than ever. Why? Why would any organisation elect to use a consultant rather than hiring someone? There are several reasons for this.

Short-term work

Some work is, by its very nature, short-term. If, for example, you are having a new computer suite installed, you might want some advice from an external person who has no axe to grind – and whom you can blame when half staff complain about design, equipment and so on!

Expertise

In a specialist area, such as ICT, it’s quite likely that school doesn’t have expertise in-house to do what it needs to do within a particular time scale.

Cost

Although consultants can be expensive, it is (or should be) a relatively short-term expense. And don’t forget that you don’t have all on-costs, like pension contributions. These can add up to 20% of salary costs. Also, if consultant goes on holiday or falls ill, you don’t incur any extra expense.

Choosing a consultant

When choosing a consultant or adviser to assist your school in ICT, whether for Hands-On Support, training, strategic development or any other aspect of ICT, it’s important to get right person or company for job.

To help you do so, here is a list of questions you may wish to ask before hiring someone. You are unlikely to find any person or company who can answer “yes” to all of these questions, so you will need to bring your own professional judgement to bear on your decision.

1.Is consultancy independently accredited by a quality assurance scheme, such as by NaaceMark or similar scheme? If not, is it seeking accreditation? Note that an answer of “No” in either case is not necessarily a bad thing. In my own experience, work itself is so time-consuming that it’s quite difficult to go through hoops required to prove that you can do what you’re doing! That’s why next few questions are important too.

2.Is consultant a member of a relevant organisation, such as (in UK) Naace or Society for Education Consultants? These types of organisation provide a certain degree of quality assurance in sense that they won’t accept just anybody as members, although they will give no guarantees about quality of work undertaken by their members. Also, they often provide useful information about sector in which consultant works, which in theory at least keeps consultant up-to-date on current developments in field.

Early Admission: Typically, student applies to college at beginning of junior year and simply goes through process earlier. However, Early Admission is seldom used as it only applies to most exceptional students who complete all high school requirements prior to 12th grade, or even earlier. Although it is not binding, I strongly recommend that student demonstrate a college level of social and emotional maturity before implementing this strategy. Schools often get into a bidding contest to recruit truly exceptional student, some offering full scholarships for privilege of having such an accomplished student on their campus! Nonetheless, use with extreme caution!

Early Read: A number of colleges will offer to calculate a family’s EFC, (the expected family contribution; minimum amount determined by federal government that a family will pay at any college for each student). This is done without obligating student to apply to their school. Simply send them all your financial information at beginning of 12th grade! Sounds like a good deal, right? Wrong! Wherever possible, keep schools and federal government out of your wallet! If student eventually decides to apply to that school, aid offer has already been predetermined. Surely, you wouldn’t feel comfortable having IRS calculate your taxes, so why would you have a college determine your EFC? Avoid this at all costs! Failure to heed this advice will result in paying thousands more than you had to for a college education!