I have recently been asked by a client how a newly accredited awarding body who owns a group of companies (one of which is currently raising its' profile in offering training services) can train and monitor standards at the same time.
For once I was lost for words! I can see why any awarding body would wish to enter the delivery market, but could also see practical problems in the monitoring of the same.
I have looked at all awarding bodies and it seems none deliver training at present although some offer consultancy in arranging bespoke qualifications.
Have any members had this raised with them? We enter into an interesting phase of now asking who our competition is and how awarding body information can be used by them and protected by us to avoid poaching.
I would be very keen to hear other members views and whether I am right or wrong in the assumption that no awarding body presently offers training too.
Training By Design Global Ltd
Susan McGaughran
8 Responses
CIPD
CIPD are both an awarding body and have a ‘delivery’ arm which provides training down in London. I don’t know quite how they work, but they might be able to provide you with some information. Their web site might be worth searching:
http://www.cipd.co.uk
Awarding Bodies
Thank you Gary, I did visit CIPD. I found that they offer a great deal of training but don’t appear to be offering their own accredited courses NVQs etc via this means.
That would make sense as it seems too close to be an awarding body and a registered centre but I have not seen any of the larger awarding bodies dealing with direct or indirect delivery yet.
Many thanks.
Training By Design Global Ltd
Vendor Based Awards
It may not be what you are thinking of but there are vendors that not only give accreditation/certification but also deliver the training. Cisco, Oracle and alike spring to mind. They may not be relevant to your question but they do have a model that may be replicated. E.G. The Cisco Academy etc.
As I said it is just the model that may be used. After all MCSE started life as an internal course at Microsoft.
Hope that helps in some way.
Awarding Body
Thank you for the comments, I should point out that the newly appointed awarding body has been accredited by QCA. When you look at the profiles of other QCA awarding bodies they just don’t deliver training themselves. Commercial accreditation is different, I think, and tends to offer a different service to say EDEXCEL and OCR.
CIPD
They do Susan, becasue it’s a bone of centention with commercial providers. I also know people who have attended their programmes.
Ethics?
Susan,
As you don’t mention the awarding body concerned, I can’t make any specific comment. However, the issue of awarding bodies conducting their own programmes leading to the award is certainly not without precedent. Perhaps the most obvious example is the system of UK universities offering their own degrees.
Rigorous external moderation (which I’m hoping has been a pre-condition in the situation you describe) should deal with the monitoring concerns you mention.
It could be argued that, by delivering the programmes themselves, the awarding body is able to keep much closer control of standards. The more centres there are offering the programmes the more difficulty in maintaining consistency – there is much anecdotal evidence of an alarming difference in standards being applied by centre’s offering a well known UK awarding body’s qualifications. In all cases the key to maintaining standards is an effective external moderation process, whoever delivers the programme.
Of course, whether the situation you describe is ethical is another question altogether!
Jeffrey Brooks
Institute of Training and Occupational Learning
Ethical dilemmas
Now that is interesting, thank you for the work done. It seems that external moderation is the key issue here. QCA will look at the evaluation process I am sure but the external verification will be done by those in the employ of the awarding body.
I looked closely at the CIPD site but could not see any NVQ type provision, however I am interested in how all awarding bodies who do have a commercial interest in their own delivery maintain standards. It is good to know who the competition is!
Training By Design Global Ltd
Awarding and Training Bodies
The Chartered Institute of Marketing has a separate organisation, CIM Training Limited that delivers training independant (and therefore subject to the same terms as other training providers) of the educational/awarding group.