Staff development

Ross Woods, Aug., 2007

Candidate staff members in ACAS member colleges sometimes need a formal qualification for no other purpose than to teach in the member college.

It's possible to patch together CVs and references as evidence of competence. But it can be messy and risky, and might not stand up to audit. On the other hand, the college understandably feels it's unfair for to ask their staff for full payment of fees, as the college is the main beneficiary.

Unless there are other factors, the recommended approach is as follows:

• To start, the member college needs only one person with audit-proof evidence of competence.
• The candidate staff member applies for the qualification.
• The candidate staff member pays the member college the standard ACAS fees applicable to member colleges for application and units, which goes to ACAS under the terms of the agreement. The member college charges no other fee.
• The member college then does an RPL assessment, avoiding any conflict of interest, and the candidate staff person graduates the same as any other.

This procedure means that you can help the staff member generously. It can be about 90% off the general fee for their highest qualification in the field of their teaching, but nobody breaks the rules. ACAS Centre doesn't cheat the board by waiving fees, and the member college pays according to the agreement. Besides, ACAS has rules on conflict of interest, which enable you to do this with minimal or no problems.