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Training Schools Diplomas and Certificates
- A school might have a number of different forms of diploma/certificate - to serve the purposes of short versus longer training, or so that the text better describes different subject areas of training.
- As for use of the two different terms, there is no standard definition of what constitutes a "diploma" versus what a "certificate" means. However, general usage suggests that diploma indicates a longer and fuller training, the completion of a full program which prepares a graduate to enter an occupation ... whereas a certificate seems to refer to training that is shorter, or training that is a 'course' or part-program.
- The Private Training Schools Regulations (s. 16) require that any diploma or certificate, or other such document about competency which a school issues for training in an occupation, must be approved by the Administrator of Private Training Schools.
- There are no specific rules to guide approval of diploma/certificates, but the essential idea is that they must not be misleading. The graduation document should allow a potential employer (or customer) to get a rough but fairly reliable understanding of what the training was like: what it was meant to prepare the graduate for -- what it was about and how full or deep it was.
Here is a checklist of suggested contents:
- who/where/what the school is (so that a person could make contact to get further information)
- the nature of the subject matter - what this program was about (if not evident from the title) and perhaps what the constituent elements were
- the level, depth or intensity of coverage - e.g. introductory/basic, full-scope, advanced; practical application vs theory plus applied; survey coverage vs intensive
- the quantity of training - e.g. expressed in hours, weeks or months
- mode(s) of training, if that is distinctive - e.g. with on-the-job-training; by distance; one-to-one mentoring
- (preferably) an indication of what kinds of work the graduate may be suitably prepared for, if this is not evident from the title - e.g. for computer programming in various languages; for management of an office computer network and end-user support
- indication of what any special terms mean - e.g. 'honour', 'with distinction', any acronym (such as MCSE, CAP, etc.)
For more information
Contact the Administrator of Private Training Schools
