Are ICM Courses Accredited?
ICM offers self-accredited, industry-recognised professional certifications
All ICM exams, courses and programs are competency-based professional certifications. They share a common base structure, scaffolded learning designs and are graded at different levels. Complete with an Academic Advisory Board to help ensure quality, ICM is an industry-based, self-accredited learning and development organisation that offers professional certifications through taught programs, courses and graded exams.
A professional certification is a formal recognition by the broader industry that relates to, and focuses on, the executive skills, knowledge and attributes (KSAs) needed to effectively and efficiently practice as a leader or manager in health services sectors. Professional certifications have been used in many industries and over multiple decades to help identify appropriately skilled and qualified practitioners. For example, in the medical field, you will see medical doctors with a variety of post-nominal letters after their name (e.g. FRACGP, FRACP, FRACS). Most of these fellowships are self-accredited, professional certifications awarded by well-regarded and long-standing training organisations dedicated to the specialist education of doctors. We are no different in this regard and our educational standards are very high.
In the health services sector, there are numerous professional organisations and peak bodies that offer practitioners the ability to become a member, associate member, fellow or similar of their organisation. However, almost all of these require an annual membership fee and the fulfilment of ongoing CPD points to be achieved. This model is old and outdated, and we thoroughly dislike that most of these other organisations do not provide structured training. When they do, it’s rarely available to you (often only once a year). This is one of the reasons we built ICM to be an evergreen (all year round) education provider.
Our internationally acknowledged team provide accessible, competitive, highly engaging structured learning courses that our learners complete before completing final exams or assessments. Our collaborative approach is also intentional, and learners are given many opportunities to work closely with well-regarded lecturers, instructors and tutors.
In other words, ICM is committed to delivering the highest standard of structured training and certification to professionals in the health services sectors in Australia, New Zealand and internationally. We’ve built our model in a way that allows for exactly that, while keeping investment at an affordable level.
ICM is a professional training and certification body
The use of the term ‘accreditation’ can be confusing. ICM is not a higher education provider and is not an RTO. ICM is, in fact, an accrediting body itself. That is, we train and accredit voice professionals, based on industry best practices and standards of knowledge, skills and attributes (KSAs) as identified by our industry leading experts and Academic Board. To avoid confusion, we use the term certification when we speak about our programs as ‘certifying’ programs for practitioners in the industry. Importantly, our programs are revised every year in the same way university and RTO programs work, and we have a stringent and independent internal self-accreditation process in place to ensure our programs are a cut above the rest. Our executive directors and managers also hold higher education and research degrees in adult and tertiary education, amongst other qualifications.
What ‘accreditation’ means in the University & RTO context
Accreditation can also means something else, though. Certain training and education providers must be ‘accredited’ by an external organisation to provide their courses and programs to students. Those types of organisations operate in a heavily regulated space and government bodies are involved in their regulation. In Australia, there are two main bodies that can formally ‘accredit’ these types of courses or programs. In the Higher Education sector, that responsibility falls on the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), and in the vocational education sector, it falls on the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA). This means, if you attend a university or a TAFE or other Registered Training Organisation (RTO), your course or program has likely been ‘accredited’ by one of those bodies. Accreditation is an important quality assurance method and it helps keep institutions honest, creating trust in the industry and with students, while helping to standardise educational outcomes. Our courses, programs and the resulting professional certifications that we offer are not legally subjected to these regulatory requirements, however we intentionally apply many of these same frameworks, regulations, policies and procedures in our operational approach to ensure we are working at ‘industry gold standard’ levels. Many of us are lecturers who also teach within these larger organisations and universities, so we understand these distinctions very well, and is the reason underpinning why we’ve built such a stringent self-accreditation program in-house at ICM. Our approach and structure enables our programs to be offered at a very reasonable cost, while ensuring our learners have access to some of the most active and respected academic leaders, trainers and educators in Australia and internationally.
Can ICM certifications be used to enter an RTO or University program?
In short: often the answer is yes but sometimes it is no or maybe. As is the case with almost any qualification (even Masters and PhD degrees), whether your qualification will be recognised by a different learning institution is entirely dependent on the RTO or University you’re applying to. It is almost exclusively at their sole discretion as to what previously completed courses, programs and professional experience their institution will recognise for program entry.
However, as proactive industry leaders, we are in regular contact with the majority of Universities and RTOs in Australia that offer programs associated with health services, human services, business, law, governance, compliance, human resources and allied health programs. We frequently take time to ensure institutional leaders and program coordinators around the country understand what goes into an ICM program, including our graduate attributes and expected outcomes. We are told by colleagues in other organisations that this effort is a big part of why ICM graduates have fast become regarded as some of the most effective practitioners in the domestic industry. For these reasons, our professional certifications are regularly recognised by Universities and RTOs as meeting their program entry requirements, including at the post-graduate level. However, if in doubt, contact us for a discussion prior to enrolment. Our leadership team are always happy to discuss your specific planned educational pathway with you, and to help you make the appropriate enquiries with other institutions that you may be considering for future study, after completing your intended ICM course.