Who are City & Guilds?
The City & Guilds of London Institute is an educational organisation that was founded in 1878 to develop a national system of Technical Education. Since 1900 they have operated under Royal Charter which was granted to them by Queen Victoria.
City & Guilds is a household brand and a global leader in skills development.
Over one million people earn a City & Guilds qualification every year, providing them with the skills they need to thrive in the workplace.
In the global economy, the ability to compete depends on building a skilled, competent and confident workforce. City & Guilds understands the value of portable skills and globally recognised standards that enable people and organisations to succeed. It partners with Governments, employers and educators in over 50 countries, across five continents, to advise them on developing high-quality skills training that meets the needs of the global workforce, without compromising on local demands.
More commonly now known as City & Guilds they have diversified into being an awarding body and as of November 2016 they offered 2312 different qualifications (this is more than any other awarding body). City & Guilds recognised that there are many valuable training programmes out there that are not formal qualifications but that do have value and should be recognised by being certificated by an awarding body. Therefore they launched their assured programme.
What is Assured?
Assured status on a training programme provides validation and recognition for both the training provider and the learner, it is a symbol of learning excellence and quality and is reassurance that the training undertaken meets best practice standards.
Any person who successfully completes an assured programme will get a City & Guilds certificate. This demonstrates that the person has completed and been successful in training to a specific standard. The City and Guilds brand is recognised worldwide too, so an assured certificate has value in any country.
Basically ‘assured’ is a quality stamp that says yes your programme meets our high standards and we are happy to certificate it.
What happens when I complete the programme?
Once the course is complete learners are registered to the City & Guilds online platform, so City & Guilds can always verify a learners participation just like they would with other qualifications such as NVQ’s etc.
Learners will also be issued with a digital credential which can be used across digital platforms such as facebook, linked in, website etc so they can advertise online to all their potential clients the fact that they hold this certification. The digital credential will have a link that details all the aspects covered on the course, for example it will state if you have covered Health & Safety etc
So what is the difference between a formal qualification and a City & Guilds assured certificate?
Well, that’s a good question! And to be honest there isn’t much difference in terms of the end result.
Nationally recognised qualifications such as NVQ’s have been written to detail the particular standards that should be studied in order to meet the requirements and ‘pass’ the qualification. The same qualifications could be offered by several awarding bodies depending on which ones have picked up that qualification. For example you could do an NVQ 2 in Painting & Decorating and the awarding body could be City & Guilds or it could be CITB, however whichever one it’s been done with you get the same qualification at the end.
If you study a nationally recognised qualification then at the end you get a certificate to say you have completed that particular qualification.
Industry Leaders!
So really between the two there is not much difference, just that already existing qualifications are familiar to people. The certificates at the end are branded just the same whether it’s a pre-existing qual or an assured programme.
Some assured programmes will catch on within the industry so much so that employers will be asking for employees and potential employees to do these courses and have these certificates.
The value is in the eye of the beholder!
We believe that the decorating industry is at an all-time low, youngsters don’t want to come into the trade because they don’t think they can earn as much money as other trades that require training. Moreover, there are a lot of spray machines sold with no training on health & safety either which is an accident waiting to happen. By adding an Assured programme we feel we can help to increase the respect levels and increase the rates.
Have a look at the current PaintTech Assured Programmes we offer here
