TheFinancial Planning Association(FPA) has announced an overhaul of its education offerings, that will mean a ‘meatier’ education program focused on raising standards, technical competency and client interaction skills.
The overhaul is designed to meet new core competencies released by the National Finance Industry Training Advisory Board (NFITAB) earlier this year which are part of a national training package.
FPA general manager of education business services Chris McMillan says the changes to the education programs, including the Diploma of Financial Services – Financial Planning (DFS-FP) , the Advanced Diploma of Financial Services – Financial Planning and the Certified Financial Practitioner (CFP) program, will be focused on ensuring a higher level of proficiency among graduates.
The DFS-FP and the Advanced DFS-FP were preceeded by the Diploma of Financial Planning (DFP) and the Advanced DFP, which had their accreditation removed as industry courses on December 31st last year.
“All the education products in the market will have to cover off the same competencies, its how you deliver them that makes the difference, and when students attend with us it will be different,” McMillan says.
The announcement, at an adviser briefing yesterday, will mean the FPA’s offering of the DFS-FP modules will be renamed to FPA 1-4, the equivalent of the past DFP, and the Advanced DFS(FP) renamed to FPA 5-8, the equivalent of the past Advanced DFP.
As part of the changes, the CFP program will be upgraded, with more technical and practical content to be included in units two and three of the program.
McMillan says there will be greater depth and breadth, with more treatment of areas such as superannuation, estate planning, risk management and applied structures.
There will also be changes to continuing professional development, with more online contact with the FPA, skill based learning opportunities and a particular section now to be pitched specifically at CFP practitioners.
Students in FPA 1-4 will now be dealing in new areas, such as interaction with clients and identifying their needs, which McMillan says is different to what other providers are doing.
In FPA 5-8, students will have to develop a plan, as they have done before, but also present it as they would to a customer, making sure they understand how to react to clients and their needs.
