Quick Facts
- The MLIB Elementary and Secondary Education Policy sets out the specific funding supports available to eligible students attending elementary and secondary education.
- The MLIB Post-Secondary Education Policy guides the MLIB Education Department in assessing the eligibility of students to receive financial assistance to attend accredited post-secondary institutions in an eligible program of study.
Project Description
MLIB engaged Bronson Consulting to update its elementary and secondary, and post-secondary policies to clarify current funding levels and to establish clear and consistent processes for applying for and obtaining eligible funding supports.
The primary objectives of policy development were to clarify funding entitlements and related eligibility and to facilitate consistent application of the policies through the documentation of clear processes for application and eligibility assessment.
Business Challenge
At the outset of this project, Bronson was advised the MLIB education policies required updates only and that there were only four forms requiring updates to align with the revised policies.
Bronson determined that MLIB’s Elementary and Secondary Education Policy required substantial updates both in terms of policy structure and content. The current did not incorporate all available funding supports, actual funding supports were outdated and inadequate and the processes for obtaining funding were not clear and as a result, eligible students were not accessing all eligible funding supports. Bronson also determined that MLIB’s Post-Secondary Education Policy required substantial updates to clarify eligibility, to document procedures related to policy application and to expand the categories of available funding supports and actual funding entitlements. In addition, Bronson observed an opportunity to establish clear processes and roles and responsibilities to support application of these policies by the MLIB Education Department.
Bronson also determined that a total of six supporting forms needed to be developed for these policies to clarify policy requirements and to support consistency in the application of these policies for both eligible students and the MLIB Education Department.
Our Solution and Outcome
Bronson maintained close communication with the Project Authority and provided regular updates, both verbal and written on the status of the project. We focussed first on updates to the Elementary and Secondary Policy and related forms and then proceeded to the Post-Secondary Education Policy.
Completion of this project involved review of current policies, review of available and current educational funding supports available either through MLIB or through the federal government, extensive consultation with the MLIB Education Department and participation, review and approval by MLIB Chief and Council.
Each policy was developed in an iterative manner with each draft of the policy(s) being subject to extensive review by key stakeholders to ensure policy content and structure was appropriate and suitable to meet the needs of MLIB. Forms were developed or substantially updated to align with the policies and to facilitate the process of applying for and assessing/awarding funding supports to eligible students.
We ensured constant monitoring of the project schedule and budget and observed that the project scope and schedule changed from our original understanding at project outset. To address this we met with the Project Authority, documented the impact of the expanded scope and schedule and prepared a formal Change Request document to enable amendment of the schedule and expansion of the budget to meet the expanded scope.
