The article below is adapted from an article published in 'The Actuary' in September 1995 explaining the tuition arrangements for the profession. It is presented here to help people understand the relationships between the profession, Institute and Faculty Education (IFE), Office of Tuition Monitoring (OTM) and the Actuarial Education Company (ActEd).

In 1995 the Institute and Faculty merged their tuition services with those provided by Hazell Carr Training Limited. After legal consultation, this was done through a joint company approach. The Institute and Faculty are joint shareholders in a company called Institute and Faculty Education Ltd (IFE).

IFE is responsible for ensuring that actuarial student tuition is available. It does this through a management agreement with with a second company, the Actuarial Education Company Ltd (ActEd). ActEd is a subsidiary of BPP Actuarial Services, which is a member of the BPP Group, a publicly listed company supplying education services. The profession has a golden share in ActEd.

IFE has three main functions:

• Setting prices;
• Monitoring the quality of tuition;
• Ownership of the intellectual property rights (IPR) of the tuition material.

The first two functions are in place so that the profession retains control in the situation of a single provider. The third function means that the supply of tuition is guaranteed.

ActEd offers a full range of tuition opportunities for students, including correspondence courses, mock examinations and face-to face tutorials. This is done directly from their office in Abingdon. Students deal with "ActEd on behalf of IFE", but all money is payable to IFE. Price controls are effected through a series of formulae to guide annual price setting at meetings between IFE and ActEd. The profession has a financial share in the profits of ActEd which are passed on to students through reduced prices. The overall position on VAT for the profession has been carefully examined, and it is necessary for IFE to charge VAT on marking services and tutorials.

The profession also has responsibility for ensuring that the quality of tuition is appropriate. For this purpose it has set up another function called the Office of Tuition Monitoring (OTM). This is led by Trevor Watkins (Head of Learning), supported by staff actuaries employed by the profession. The staff actuaries carry out a number of activities for the profession, including education development, CPD, research co-ordination, international education, some committee work, and examination support, as well as quality monitoring of tuition through OTM. Visits are made to classes, marked scripts are scrutinised, and satisfaction surveys of students are analysed. The tuition material is also reviewed.

A report on ActEd is given to IFE annually, or on other occasions if IFE requests special features to be examined.

The courses provided by ActEd contain the syllabus, core reading and tuition material to help students understand the core. OTM looks at the integration of core reading and tuition material in these courses. It is possible for any other potential tuition provider in the future to purchase core reading and to be subject to OTM quality control.

Although prices are agreed worldwide for tuition, special consideration has been given to university students on full-time degrees and diploma courses. Students in developing countries have special arrangements for tuition.

The profession entered this arrangement with the intention that it should last for a long time. Students' and employers' comments are always welcome.