"HOW TO GUIDE"

The Louisiana PTEC™ program audit was developed to assess community and technical college compliance with the requirements and guidelines of the Louisiana PTEC AAS Degree Program. The PTEC Program Audit document uses feedback from all aspects of the program: the educational institution and administrators, instructors and professors, students, and industry representatives.

Benefits
The audit process is beneficial to programs that want to assure quality instruction to their students and increase industry participation by generating confidence in their programs and graduates. Using the audit tool maintains continuity among endorsed institutions that facilitates articulation. In addition, the audit tool can provide direction to the administration, be used to address revisions to the curriculum and give a point of reference for program improvement.

Beyond providing feedback to program stakeholders, the process also requires the educational institution and the Louisiana Community and Technical College System (LCTCS) to develop an action plan to address specified gaps and to complete the assigned action items.

Roles and Responsibilities
Each participant in the audit process has different roles and responsibilities. Initially, the educational institution completes a self-assessment using the audit tool in preparation for the day of audit. After participating in the development of the action plan, the institution is required to provide a quarterly status of their action plan to the LCTCS and their regional PTEC Advisory Committee. In cases where the program is new or being completely revised, the audit tool can be used annually to assess the program.

The audit leader conducts a pre-audit meeting to divide responsibilities and develop an action plan for the audit. Then the leader notifies the educational institution of the audit date and facilitates the opening meeting the closeout meeting for the audit. Finally, the leader assembles the final audit report for distribution to the LCTCS, the State PTEC Advisory Board and the regional PTEC Advisory Committee for the educational institution being audited.

The Audit Team
The audit team is made up of members of the regional PTEC Advisory Committee, a representative from an institution that has a PTEC program (other than the one being audited), and a representative from the Louisiana Community and Technical College System auditor’s office.

The regional PTEC Advisory Committee for each educational institution is comprised of representatives from industry, the educational institution, local government, and local public education. This committee identifies the need and the timeframe for the audit, and identifies the audit leader and auditors to be used.

The Louisiana State PTEC Advisory Board includes representatives from industry, one for each of the three regions of the PTEC program educational institutions; the LCTCS; the Governor’s Office; the Board of Regents; the Louisiana Chemical Association; and is chaired by an industry representative. The State PTEC Advisory Board establishes guidelines for the Program Audit Process and the final audit report is sent to them in their oversight capacity.

The LCTCS provides an auditor from their office and provides feedback through the audit report to the educational institution. They track the educational institution’s progress against the plan and provide details of the action plan to the regional PTEC Advisory Committee to assist in follow-up activities.

PTEC Program Audit Process documents are provided by Ronnie Madere, Site Learning Leader at the Dow Chemical Company, St. Charles Operations, the Louisiana State PTEC Advisory Board, and by Kathy Trahan, Executive Director of Process Technology at Baton Rouge Community College.