How did you find self study without a training provider??

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I am disappointed then because, knowing me as you do, I would like to think that you would know that was not my intention.

And, I would like to add that I could have taken offence at your comment in reply to Gold Partner status, but I took it in good part...

 

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Then why would you even say, "Employer or TP? I could understand why you're so protective of Boson," if that was not your intention to link TP with Boson... or to even imply that I am protective of TPs?!?

 

I think the problem is twofold:

1. Most people don't complain effectively. It takes persistance, facts and preferably evidence. Just making threats, unfounded accusations and a lot of noise doesn't cut it. It also helps if you complain to the right people. Look how many people we get on this forum every month looking for help fighting their TP - most of them don't know what they signed up for, aren't exactly sure what's gone wrong and then give up after a couple of posts.

2. The regulatory bodies that are present take a long time to do anything decisive. Trading standards may investigate a single student's calims, but they'll be cautious of going head-to-head with a corporation without sufficient evidence. Unless loads of students complain to the same office they're unlikely to get it.

It all works on an 'individual' basis. One person complains properly to the right person and they may get their case resolved. As far as TS (or whoever) are concerned, that's a piece of paper gone from the desk, next.

A big case a while back that was on TV also highlighted a problem whereby the salespeople were self employed or worked for an agency. That way if one of them was caught out of line, it was all too easy for the company concerned to hang them out to dry and promise a full investigation yada yada.

 

So how are new regulatory bodies or legislative actions going to change all that? If UKs governmental bureaucracy is anything like the USs, then it'll work exactly as you have described it above.

 

Quite - it won't work.

Of course on the other extreme there is regulation like in the financial services industry, but that was after a massive debacle where millions of people lost money on bad investments. Now they all have to be qualified, certified, audited, members of professional bodies, etc. It's not a bad thing - does it make any difference if you are going to invest £5k in an ISA or a training course?

As long as training providers run as profit making sales businesses rather than as services for education and training, it will never be possible to regulate them.

There we go - I've fixed it. Provide government subsidy for people providing training whilst providing them with strict guidelines. Ban the terms 'training' or 'education' everywhere else. Prevent TPs from using a commission based salesforce. Require TPs to provide auditable stats on student numbers and pass rates.

To be fair, some trainers do that already - but they're not the ones we're talking about here...

While there's a quick and easy buck to be made by someone, there will always be someone there to make it.
As soon as it becomes too complicated, they'll find something else to do.

 

Exactly, its called traditional education, go to a respected, regulated, gov approved university.

They're not perfect, but they're probably the best thing we've got for assisted learning education.

It will also be interesting to see how the IT Diploma pans out...

 

...and there you've broken it again. The government gains revenue only through taxation... thus, the taxpayer pays for it. I dunno about you guys over there... but I don't want to pay any more taxes. Our finances are in enough trouble as it is without the government spending MORE of our money.

And then you've eliminated innovation while regulating the little-guy (and, typically, good) TPs out of business.

Not if there's money to be made... they'll just throw money at the complicated stuff to make it happen. Those expenses will be passed on to - you guessed it - the student.

No thanks... I'll take the system we've got and just warn people to avoid bad TPs.

 

What a great debate, but it looks like we've done a full circle!!

It starts off with 'don't ever go with a TP' to 'if you do, don't go with a bad one'

Yes there are bad ones out there, but also good ones.

All you can is advise the students to research, research and research. If they then decide to go with a TP or self study that their choice.

In my own opinion (and without my sales head on) if you go with the right TP then it will be money well spent, however only if you utilise everything they can offer

FA

 

Balls. Thought I had it sorted.

Anyway, I'm with a TP next week doing my Prince2.

I'll let you know how it goes...

 

I guess you're hearing what you want to hear, then. I and others have consistently said, "There's no need to spend the money on a TP", which is quite a bit different from "Don't ever go with a TP".