Student retention removals fall

There has been a significant drop in the number of students failing to renew registration for 2011-12, according to the General Optical Council. It removed 217 students from its registers who failed to meet the 31 August deadline, compared to 386 in 2010.

This year's registrants were the first to use the Council's new online registration system, MyGOC - which it said accounted for 97.5 per cent of student registrations. The Council conducted a survey into the online system and found that 88 per cent of users found the process 'easy' or 'very easy'. In addition, 92 per cent were found to have completed the retention in less than 10 minutes.