How institutes and professional bodies can partner with awarding organisations
Institutes and professional bodies play an important role in maintaining standards in their sectors. They understand the skills, knowledge and behaviours professionals need, often developing standards of competence, supporting members and providing training and continuing professional development (CPD).
But developing and delivering professional learning is one thing. Turning that learning into a nationally recognised, regulated qualification is another.
This is where partnerships between professional bodies and awarding organisations can create new opportunities by bringing together specialist sector knowledge with expertise in qualification development, assessment and quality assurance.
Bringing different expertise together
Professional bodies and institutes are often the experts in their particular subject area. They understand the profession, the challenges facing practitioners and the standards expected within the sector. Many also have established training programmes, CPD activity or their own standards of competence.
An awarding organisation is an independent institution that designs, develops and issues regulated qualifications and certificates. Awarding organisations bring a different area of expertise. They understand the requirements involved in developing qualifications, assessment and quality assurance, and how to provide consistent certification against defined standards.
The two therefore have complementary roles.
In some cases, professional bodies already have experience of awarding qualifications themselves. The awarding sector includes many specialist organisations, with the Federation of Awarding Bodies currently listing 132 full members. Of these, 72% are small or micro awarding organisations and 62% operate in niche sectors.
For other institutes and professional bodies, becoming an awarding organisation is not necessarily practical or appropriate. They may have the subject expertise and an established training offer, but not the time, resources or specialist expertise required to develop and maintain a regulated qualification.
A partnership with an established awarding organisation can provide another route.
Supporting existing training and CPD
Professional bodies may already have successful training programmes that they want to strengthen through external quality assurance or recognition. An awarding organisation can provide an independent framework for quality assurance, helping ensure that learning and assessment are delivered consistently against agreed standards.
This can be particularly useful where an institute has strong subject expertise and an established training offer, but wants to demonstrate the quality and consistency of that provision to learners, employers or other stakeholders.
There can also be a role for CPD. Many professional bodies already provide CPD opportunities for members or expect members to maintain their professional development. Working with an awarding organisation can provide a compelling route to structuring, recognising or quality assuring learning that sits within that wider professional development journey.
Turning professional expertise into recognised qualifications
Working with an awarding organisation can allow a professional body to take the knowledge and standards it has developed within its industry and translate these into nationally recognised qualifications.
This could mean developing a new qualification around an emerging area of professional practice, creating a formal progression route within an established profession, or bringing greater structure and recognition to existing training.
The professional body remains the source of specialist industry knowledge. The awarding organisation provides the framework and expertise needed to turn that knowledge into a robust qualification.
For learners and employers, this can provide a clearer way to demonstrate competence against recognised standards.
For the profession itself, qualifications can help support professionalisation and create structured routes for people entering, progressing within or developing their careers.
What could a partnership look like?
There isn’t a single model. The right approach depends on what the professional body is already doing and what it wants to achieve.
Quality assurance for existing training
An awarding organisation can work with you to quality assure an existing training programme, providing an external framework for reviewing delivery, assessment and quality processes.
This can allow you to retain ownership of your subject expertise and training while bringing in specialist awarding and quality assurance know-how.
Developing a regulated qualification
Where there is a need for a formal qualification, an awarding organisation can work with your subject-matter experts and stakeholders to develop qualification standards around the requirements of your profession.
iCQ Awards already works with subject-matter experts and sector stakeholders to develop nationally recognised qualifications across a range of sectors.
This could provide a formal qualification where existing provision does not adequately reflect current professional practice or create progression routes within a developing area of work.
Becoming a centre
Professional bodies may also be able to become a recognised centre and deliver iCQ Awards qualifications directly.
This provides access to iCQ’s awarding and certification services, as well as iLearner, our integrated platform for managing learning, assessment and certification.
The result is a partnership in which the professional body can focus on delivering its specialist training while iCQ provides the awarding infrastructure behind it.
Why work with an awarding organisation?
For a professional body, the benefits will depend on the model you choose, but external awarding expertise can provide several opportunities.
- Recognition and assurance: External quality assurance can provide additional confidence that training and assessment are being delivered against defined standards and robust quality processes.
- Professionalisation: A regulated qualification can provide a formal way of recognising competence within a profession and establish clearer progression routes for learners and practitioners.
- Consistency: A qualification framework provides a consistent basis for assessing competence, helping employers and learners understand what a qualification represents.
- Capacity: Partnering with an awarding organisation means you don’t necessarily need to build every part of the qualification and quality assurance infrastructure yourself. You can continue to focus your resources on supporting members, developing your profession and delivering high-quality training.
Interested in exploring what a partnership could look like?
Speak to our team to discuss your existing training, professional standards and what you want to achieve – and how we might be able to support.
