Sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs Website Hosted by Minnesota State University Moorhead

A Vision for Reengineering the Education Program

Education business process reengineering encompasses three entities—VA, schools and State approving agencies.  Although we are separate and distinct entities with different missions, we share one common goal:  to deliver VA education benefits to those who have earned them, and to their dependents, in a timely, accurate and compassionate manner.

To accomplish that goal, we must strive to be customer-driven organizations operating in an environment of rapid technological change.  From the viewpoint of the veteran-student customer, we should attempt to provide seamless service from approval of programs, to delivery of educational services, to receipt of benefits earned.

In order to provide seamless service in a rapidly evolving technological environment, we must constantly change, or reengineer, our respective business processes.

For the VA, reengineering our business processes means moving our claims processing to TEES.  TIMS or The Image Management System, stores claims and documents electronically, but human beings still process those documents manually.  The vision for TEES, The Expert Education System, as expressed by the Under Secretary for Benefits, is that 90 percent of education claims will be processed without human intervention by the end of fiscal year 2002. 

Reengineering in VA also means moving our existing paper-based business processes to electronic transactions over the Internet.  WAVE, the Web Automated Verification of Enrollment, is now available to veterans on our gibill.va.gov web site.  Montgomery GI Bill veterans may now verify their monthly enrollment with VA over the Internet.  VANetCert will give schools the ability to certify veterans’ enrollment data to VA over the Internet.  It will also show the individual veteran’s award data so that school officials will be able to answer routine benefit inquiries.  With VONAPP, the Veterans’ On-line Application, veterans will be able to apply for education benefits on the Internet, “sign” the application using a digital certificate and submit their application to VA electronically.

Schools are the second element in reengineering the delivery of VA education benefits.  School certifying officials will become an even more critical link than they are today in the delivery of accurate and timely education benefits to veterans.  They will directly provide raw enrollment data to TEES which will automatically process the data and initiate delivery of benefits.  We, the VA and SAAs, must invest more heavily in our training efforts and assistance visits with school certifying officials.  Recognizing the high turnover rates among certifying officials, we need to explore new ways of insuring that they are adequately trained, whether it be by Web-based training lessons, mentoring by other schools, VA or SAA personnel video conferencing, or through other means.

As part of our overall reengineering process, we have entered into discussions with the National Student Data Clearinghouse regarding the provision of automated student enrollment data directly to the VA.  The Clearinghouse has already negotiated a contract with the Department of Education to provide student enrollment data for recipients of direct loans and grants.  We are also going to pilot test the use of digital certificates with school certifying officials so that in the future automated environment we can have some degree of certainty that the person providing enrollment data from the school is indeed the certifying official.

The third party of the triad providing education benefits to veterans is the State approving agency.  In the Internet age, it is imperative that we move our business processes from paper-based to web-based to the extent possible.  We would like to see a fully automated approval process from the school to the SAA to the VA.  The business processes at many schools are already on the Internet from school catalogs, to student application and registration to the issuance of grades, not to mention the delivery of educational content.  Our school partners are equipped to provide information to us electronically, yet today, in most cases, they can’t because we are not equipped to receive and process that information electronically.

Automating the approval process should result in more time for us in the VA and SAAs to focus our efforts in areas such as oversight of schools which we believe will become much more critical as we in VA move into an automated processing environment.  To maintain the integrity of the VA education program, we need to look at compliance survey schedule requirements and make sure that they are focused on high-risk schools, whether they be large or small, 2- or 4-year, public or private.  We also need to review the SAA supervisory visit schedule with the same goal in mind.  We need to insure that our oversight efforts complement one another and not result in duplicate effort.  In two States we have piloted tested SAAs in conducting compliance surveys.  Those tests have worked well and we should expand those efforts to the degree that it is mutually beneficial to both parties.

Automating the approval process should also allow us to redirect our resources to other areas as well.  We should continue and where possible expand outreach to active duty military personnel through the Transition Assistance Program and outreach to veterans after they return home from active military duty.

The Congress is moving towards a seamless transition from military to civilian status in several areas.  First, they have passed legislation providing for the approval of and payment of Montgomery GI Bill benefits for test preparation courses.  They have asked VA for a report of State provided veterans education benefits in order to obtain a comprehensive view of all education benefits provided to veterans.  We in the Education Service are serving on an interagency task force to examine how active duty military and veterans may obtain State licensure or certification for their occupation without having to replicate previous military training.  We want to encourage State approving agencies to explore what service they can provide to support this seamless transition to a total benefits portfolio at the State level.

A trend in both State and federal governments over the past several years has been the examination of program outcomes.  In the VA the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) requires us to evaluate the outcomes of each veterans benefits program.  The Montgomery GI Bill was the first benefit program in the VA to be evaluated under GPRA.  The pending evaluation report demonstrates the positive return on investment of the GI Bill to both the veteran and the nation.  It also recommends a substantial increase in GI Bill benefits with enhanced program flexibility in order to keep the program viable in a rapidly changing economy and an environment of increasing costs of education.  We in government are increasingly being asked to demonstrate the effectiveness and outcomes of the programs we administer.  For SAAs the hope is that you will be able to strengthen your report of activities so that all levels of oversight can recognize the value you add to the veterans’ education benefit program.

Finally, legislation is on the horizon that will provide a GI Bill for the 21^st century.  We, working as partners, VA, schools and SAAs, need to insure that we have a benefit and information delivery system for the 21^st century as well.