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Accreditation / Awarding Bodies

 

 

There are a number of accreditation or awarding bodies in the English education sector. They assess the quality and levels of courses offered by training organisations and institutions. A course which has been accredited by one of these bodies effectively has a quality control stamp on it which will be recognised by employers and institutions in the healthcare sector. If you are thinking of taking a course because you need it for future employment such as working in the National Health Service, it is a good idea to check out with potential employers first what sort of accreditation they will accept and what level of qualification they will be looking for. Some of the introductory courses will not be at the level needed for employment purposes.

 

If you might just be looking for a basic introduction to a particular skills area, consider taking a course which is accredited anyway as it might help you to take a higher level course some years in the future, even if you might not be thinking of this at present. 

 

You might like to do some research on accreditation from the following organisations:    

 

ABC Awards

http://www.abcawards.co.uk/

 

Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA)

http://www.aqa.org.uk/

 

ASET

http://www.aset.ac.uk/index.php

 

British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy

http://www.bacp.co.uk/education/training.html

 

City and Guilds

http://www.city-and-guilds.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/cgonline

 

Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body

http://www.cpcab.co.uk/

 

EDEXCEL

http://www.edexcel.org.uk/home/

 

NCFE, formerly the Northern Council for Further Education

http://website.ncfe.org.uk/index.php/root/home

 

RSPH (Royal Society for the Promotion of Health)

http://www.rsph.org/default.asp

 

 

All accreditation / awarding bodies in England fall under the Regulation of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. The QCA is a Government organisation which exercises a kind of quality control over the work of accreditation / awarding bodies such that there can be public confidence in the quality of training offered and certificated. It has statutory powers to step in if something is going wrong and if it looks as if there are problems with standards. You can read more about the work of the QCA at http://www.qca.org.uk/ .

 

The QCA has established a framework for measuring the level of advancement of the teaching courses and follows a numerical grading system.  If you start to look for counselling courses, you will see that a course might be given as Level 1 or Level 3 or some other Level. These Levels relate to the QCA framework and grading system which you can read about on webpages  

http://www.qca.org.uk/493_15771.html , http://www.qca.org.uk/493_15772.html , http://www.qca.org.uk/493_15773.html and

http://www.qca.org.uk/493_15774.html. Level 1 is the lowest Level. My understanding that often something around Level 3 or Level 4 will be needed for somebody to be regarded as having adequate entry qualifications for employment in many organisations. There can be variation in course content between different course providers for courses at the same Level so it is best to do some thorough research into what is on offer from different providers. 

 

The QCA has had two main roles in recent years – (i) involvement in the development of courses and the subsequent application of the qualifications grading scheme to these courses and (ii) acting as a Regulator to ensure that qualifications grading scheme is operated appropriately. The Government now takes the view that as Regulator there is a potential conflict of interest in the QCA continuing to regulate courses where it has had input to the development of course content. On 26th September 2007, proposals were announced to transfer the regulatory role of the QCA to a new independent regulatory body that would be independent of the Government and of the QCA, and that the main role for the QCA in the future would be to continue its work relating to the development of course content and the application of the qualifications grading scheme to courses. This initiative would appear not to be directed at changing the structure or application of the qualifications grading scheme so does not change substantively any information about the courses that I have researched. Details of the proposals can be found on the QCA website by clicking here and on the Department for Children, Schools and Families website by clicking here and here.        

 

 

 

 

 

Date of posting 14th October 2007

 

 

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