EuropeActive hosted its third live forum for education providers on April 7, 2022 during FIBO 2022 in Cologne. The event was themed “Accreditation after the pandemic – a balanced view” and served as an open forum for the exchange of thoughts and ideas on ongoing accreditation policy. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an immediate impact on the ability of education providers to deliver and assess their education programs. Providers were forced to be innovative in order to comply with the imposed restrictions. EuropeActive also had to show flexibility by allowing adapted practices among its accredited education providers.
EuropeActive’s Director of Education Services, Julian Berriman, briefed the group on the ongoing work to establish a Sector Skills Pathway, in which EuropeActive’s accreditation service will play a key role, and the potential to extend this function to European certification of learners within a certification organization. This is a goal for EuropeActive’s Horizon 2025 manifesto. Under the leadership of Accreditation Manager Charlie Heywood, the group then formulated the post-pandemic vision for education services.
Topics discussed with the group included agreement on the requirements for the number of teacher observations of course delivery and assessment to ensure consistent practice across all training teams. The group also agreed that video transmissions would be accepted as standard practice for the assessment of practical exercises in the gym and on the number of training hours to be delivered in virtual classrooms in real time. It was also agreed that theory exams such as oral interviews and exam questions including multiple choice theory questions could be conducted live by a tutor in a virtual classroom.
Finally, EuropeActive announced that the EuropeActive International Standardization Meeting 2022 will take place in Prague on 3 and 4 November.
