Accreditation or Regulation

Accreditation is a generic term often defined as ‘a process of recognising a person, course or organisation as meeting a set of designated official requirements against a particular area or topic’. They are utilised as benchmarks to measure performance against a certain standard or quality. Unlike qualifications, accredited courses are not necessarily aligned to the national educational system or National Occupational Standards (NOS). Instead, accreditation is offered by a range of organisations such as Pharma/product manufacturers, insurance companies and professional bodies.

A regulated qualification is one that is overseen by a regulatory body. The Office for Students (OfS) regulated Higher Education (HE) in universities and The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) regulates qualifications, examinations and assessments in England for qualifications on the Qualification Credit Framework (QCF), such as:

GCSEs
A levels
AS levels
Vocational and technical qualifications
Apprenticeship end-point assessments

Ofqual (and other equivalent UK designated Vocational Councils for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) ensure that the end result of regulated qualifications reliably indicate the knowledge, skills and understanding students have achieved, that all qualifications are standardised in their delivery and that assessments and exams show what a student is effectively able to perform. The aim of Ofqual (and the other UK National Vocational Councils) is to ensure people have confidence in the qualifications that they regulate and that the public, students and teachers all have transparent information on the full range of qualifications that they regulate.

A regulated qualification has currency as it is transferable and comparable with the qualification frameworks of other UK nations being endorsed by independent regulators.

It is essential that all education and training providers have clear differentiation between those programmes that are built around regulated qualifications, designed to equip students to practise safely, competently and effectively within the aesthetic sector and those short courses that are provided as part of continuous professional development (CPD) which are designed to update and refresh practitioner skills following the completion of their initial qualification.

Non-regulated qualification providers may seek to obtain formal recognition and educational endorsement of their cosmetic education and training programmes through the process of accreditation. In the industry there are a range of accreditation routes available to an education and training provider, with endorsement being applied in a number of forms, including Higher and Further Education, Awarding Bodies (AO’s) Vocational/membership organisations or insurance companies, to name but a few. When Universities or Ofqual (and the other UK National Vocational Councils) approved Awarding Organisations (AO’s) offer endorsed support for an accredited course, it is usually the quality of the teaching and course delivery that are the main focus of the ‘endorsement’, not the course content.

The potential student should be very clear about the status of the course with regard to regulation or accreditation and be in no doubt regarding the standards against which their elected qualification or programme of study has been mapped and accredited.

It is worth noting that the terms ‘qualifications’, ‘Higher Education’ and ‘accredited’ are not protected terms, so may be misrepresented by unscrupulous providers in promoting their courses. Whilst the term ‘university’ is a protected title this term is often used to describe some aesthetic training centres and academies which is also misleading.