Hundreds of social care students do not know if their degrees will be accredited

Hundreds of students who are completing dozens of social care courses at university have been told there is no guarantee that their degrees will secure the required professional accreditation to work in the sector.

A new social care workers register is due to open in November of next year. Under this, new entrants must have an approved qualification in order to work in the sector.

However, universities have told students in recent days that while they are applying to Coru, the regulator for health and social care professionals, there are no guarantees that their programmes will be approved. The students will not find this out until next year.

It follows a controversy at Dublin Business School (DBS) where about 80 social care students were told last month that the college had withdrawn an application for its course to be accredited when it became apparent it would not be successful. Students complained that their qualifications were “worthless” as a result.

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At the time Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris said DBS should consider paying refunds to students over its failure to secure approval. This controversy prompted Mr Harris’s department to ask all providers of social care programmes to communicate the accreditation status of their courses to all current and prospective students in the interests of transparency.

Some students who returned to their social care courses in universities in recent days were told that if their programmes did not get approval, some alternative options may include working for two years in the sector.

Under current regulations, only a person who has been practising in the profession for a minimum of two years out of the previous five by November of next year may be deemed qualified if they successfully complete a competency test. However, under a Bill currently before the Oireachtas, the period of time to gain this two years of experience could be extended to November 2025.

The developments have prompted concern among students on some colleges campuses such as the South East Technological University (SETU) in Waterford, which has two social care work degree programmes. The university applied for the courses to be approved in 2019. However, earlier this month it formally requested an extension to a deadline to provide Coru with further information relevant to the applications from September to December of this year.

The application is due to be reviewed at the next meeting of the Social Care Workers’ Registration Board and a decision is due to be communicated before the end of this month.

A spokeswoman for SETU said: “We have a culture of open dialogue with our students to ensure that they are aware of key developments relating to their course. In our start of semester communications, we updated them on our ongoing engagement with Coru and until this process is complete, we cannot pre-empt any decision of the Social Care Workers Registration Board.”

Munster Technological University has also confirmed to students that it is currently in the process of applying for official recognition of its two social care programmes in Cork and Kerry.

Coru said it is critical to the protection of the public that all registered health and social care professionals meet the required education and training standards.

“By ensuring this we can be confident that each registrant is safe to practise and can operate as an autonomous practitioner,” a spokesman said. “Therefore ensuring that education institutes deliver appropriate qualifications is one of the most important ways we protect the public.”

He said education and training standards were issued in 2017 and the work of reviewing social care work education programmes began in 2019.