TheFinancial Planning Association (FPA)will create a separate commercial unit to provide education and training to its members.
The existing FPA education department, which is currently part of the association, will now be housed within two units, the Education Business Unit (EBU) and the International and Certification Standards Unit (ICSU).
The EBU will be headed by general manager Chris McMillan who recently joined the FPA after developing education programs at the Securities Institute of Australia, while the current head of the FPA’s education unit Ken Bruce will head up the ICSU.
The ICSU will focus on dealing with financial planning groups across the globe and working to improve the mark and entry level standards to Certified Financial Planner (CFP) program. The EBU will be involved in the ongoing provision of the Diploma of Financial Planning (DFP) program.
The FPA has made the move as part of its bid to become a registered training organisation (RTO), which will allow the association to continue to offer education programs under new guidelines that take effect from early next year.
McMillan says the FPA will have the RTO status by the first semester of 2003 and would make some changes to its DFP program. It would do this by splitting the course into two elements dubbed the Foundation DFP, covering units 1 through 4 and the Advanced DFP, covering units 5 through 8.
The new course will focus more on competencies and existing DFP students would migrate across, according to McMillan, who says in some cases students would already be ahead of the new standards.
However in making the move to comply with the new regime the FPA will also accept courses from other education providers, without exemptions, provided they also meet the new criteria.
The FPA would also offer access to the CFP program on the same basis, with FPA chief executive Ken Breakspear saying the minimum entry to the CFP was still an industry standard Advanced Diploma, like that of the DFP.
“We have appointed an external assessor to ensure that other education programs meet the FPA’s measures for entrance into the CFP program,” Breakspear says.
And while this means the market for industry standard education will be wide open Breakspear says the association will provide a wider offering by making use of the association’s resources and history as an education provider.
