It struck me recently that I must have helped a rather large number of people pass their APMP Foundation Level exam since we were endorsed as an APMP Approved Training Organisation a couple of years ago. There are well over a hundred of you out there who’ve passed having attended one of my sessions, which is well over 10% of the total to have attained the qualification.
Now, we’ve never really seen the APMP accreditation scheme as a money-making operation; BJ and I participate in it because we’re passionate about its importance to the profession. If one calculated our investment in accreditation, and weighed that against our continuing efforts to offer training in this area as cost-effectively as possible, the balance sheet would horrify our bank managers. Indeed, we’ve even donated the proceeds of events in the past to the Association’s coffers; I’m willing to be corrected, but I think we were the first to do so.
But we love meeting the range of people who come into our classes – from different industry sectors, from organisations of wildly differing sizes, from clients old and new. And it occurs to me to wonder how these folks fare after the course. I’d welcome any comments on the following, either here or by email:
1. Has Foundation Level proved useful? Has it helped you learn new tricks, provided you with an injection of confidence, made you more credible with your colleagues, helped you gain a pay rise, strengthened your c.v., been useful in gaining a new job?
2. Not that high a proportion of those passing Foundation worldwide have yet moved on to reach Practitioner level. What inhibits them? Is it time, cost, fear of failure, the breadth of the syllabus, lack of the necessary three years’ experience?