`Certificates, certificates," one adult learner declares. "I could wall paper my whole house with my certificates and yet they don't get me into any college course." One of the greatest frustrations suffered by many people enrolled on adult education courses is their lack of accreditation.
However, good, useful or valuable your course of study, if at the end of the day, you can't progress, you're likely to feel that what you have achieved is worthless. All the signs are, though, that all this is set to change. Thanks to the Qualifications (Education and Training) Act, which was passed into law in July, a major shake-up of our education system is on the cards.
Under the terms of the Act, a National Qualifications Authority (NQA) is to be established as the overall guarantor of the quality of further and higher education and training. The NQA will also promote access, transfer and progression into and within education and training. Consumer protection and quality assurance, too, are important elements of the legislation. At the bill's launch, back in March, the Minister for Education and Science, Mr Micheal Martin, stated that at the heart of the legislation, "is the creation of a national qualifications framework which will implement best international practice in promoting quality in education, actively promote and protect the interests of students and allow individual institutions to receive recognition for their work through the delegation of certification powers".
It's good news for adult learners and providers. Importantly, thanks to AON TAS' lobbying, the new Authority will include a member from the voluntary and community adult education sector. Under the terms of the Act, the new authority will consist of fourteen members and will include "two persons nominated by the Minister, one of whom shall be a person who, in the opinion of the Minister, is representative of community and voluntary organisations. "We would like to see a representative from AONTAS on the board," says Fiona McCauley, who is an AONTAS policy worker. "Our membership has expanded considerably," she explains, "and most of the growth has been from daytime groups in the community and voluntary sector." The sector now represents two thirds of total membership.
According to the Act, "the Authority shall nominate as members two persons who have a special knowledge and experience related to the functions of the Authority, at least one of whom shall be a person with international experience related to those functions. "This," notes Ms McCauley, "is very interesting. It shows how closely our certification system is going to be linked to what's happening at European level." The AONTAS policy worker predicts that there will be no shortage of personnel to fill the position. Civil servants apart, a considerable number of people have worked on ESF funded educational projects, for example, and have the requisite experience, she says. The Act establishes two new accreditation bodies - the Further Education and Training Awards Council and the Higher Education and Training Awards Council. The learner, Ms McCauley observes, is now placed at the centre of the system. "Certification will no longer depend on where, when or how you chose to study. You can be located in a university or study at home via the Internet. Wherever they study, learners will have access to the same certification options."
Even individual learners will be able to apply to bodies to have their learning accredited, she explains. Community groups, too, will be able to apply to the awarding bodies for accreditation of their programmes of education. "The new Act is changing everything. A lot of barriers that were there for the community and voluntary sector will disappear."
For the future, providers will be required to show the awarding councils that their programmes are of sufficient quality to merit validation. Parity is vital, Ms McCauley notes.
"The councils are going to have to be convinced that there is parity between courses," she says. Under the new framework, mechanisms must be put in place to ensure the accreditation of prior, experiential learning, she says. As a result of the Green Paper, the soon-to-be-published White Paper and the Qualifications (Education and Training) Act, the future for adult education has never looked better. However, Fiona McCauley highlights a concern.
"Even though the issue is of vital importance to the sector, very few people knew that this bill (Qualifications (Education and Training) was going through," she says. "They were unaware that a debate on these issues was going on. It's all very well to put together mechanisms to improve the situation, but if the information isn't disseminated, people won't know about it." Government departments should make greater efforts to inform the public about legislative and other changes, she argues.
