Education Report for the Annual General Meeting
of the British Institute of Funeral Directors October 2017
Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, there will be little in this report that you are not aware of, since my appointment as Chairman of the Education Committee, I have endeavoured to keep the membership up to date with events with in education, through the Journal, and other periodicals as well as through reasonably regular email newsletters.
Before I start my report, I would like to welcome Charne Greene from Greenwich University, who through her support and encouragement, has enabled the Institute to progress to the point we find ourselves today.
I would also like to pay tribute to both the Education Committee members and the Board of Examiners, who have worked together to enhance the content of our courses and the standard of presentation of our examinations, the Education Committee have received incredible support from the Board of Directors, for which we are most grateful
National Funeral Exhibition
We drew a great deal interest at the National Funeral Exhibition and a good number of people were spoken to about membership, renewing lapsed membership and enquiries about training, it proved to be a very worthwhile weekend. We made contact with about twenty people looking to enrol on our diploma course and their names were passed on to their local tutors
Meetings with The Independent College
During the exhibition an informal conversation began with Terry Tennants over coffee, which proved to be the beginning of our focussed thought on the possibility of working together to offer the profession a complete learning ladder, with the IFDC offering a VQ type training for funeral operatives up to administrator level and then the students’ achievements being mapped across and upgraded for our certificate course and the student moving on to obtain the diploma and the Higher Certificate in Funeral Management. If we are able to achieve this learning ladder we would be in a much stronger position if and when legislation is imposed on us by Government. Nothing will be progressed without the agreement of this meeting and confirmation that Greenwich approve of this venture. This is not as straight forward as it may seem, the IFDC VQ award is level two and so the learning level must be raised to level four on the subjects covered and then the subjects not covered must be included in the upgrade in order to obtain the accredited level for Greenwich
Committee Meetings
Our Education Meetings are proving very fruitful, with all our active tutors being involved , we felt in the initial stages it was best for all tutors and examiners to be part of the forward planning of the educational program for the institute and have the opportunity to contribute to the meeting so that no one felt excluded or undervalued, with the imminent increase in tutors, the former practice will be reverted to, where there will be a maximum number of tutors on the education committee and each member will serve for a set term.
Continual Professional Development
This year the BIFD have gained Government Approved status, this means we are registered as providers and awarders of CPD with in the profession, at the moment all tutors and examiners are registered as providers, with a full CPD program approved for presentations at regional meetings, in addition to this we are working on ‘on line’ CPD, a members site on our website is being created which will be accessed through a unique code each member will have, the CPD pages will be available to all members and as they work through their chosen subjects the time will be credited to them and registered.
We have also reintroduced Education Weekends at West Bromwich, the date for the next weekend is in February 2018 and details have been made available to you all, which is included in your conference pack, as part of the program for the weekend there will a visit to the new Resumation Centre near Birmingham. May I remind you that education meetings are available to everyone who would like to come, not just tutors.
Special events are also being arranged during the year to which everyone is invited, this year we visited Southampton Teaching Hospital to learn about bequeathal, and in February we have arranged a visit to Kenyans National Disaster Centre, details of which will be made available shortly and everyone is invited.
We would like to get to the point where all our members are licenced, so we are making CPD readily available to every member in as many ways as possible
Tutor Training Program
The enquiries by members interested in becoming tutors is very encouraging and an induction day has been held for those who were able to attend each prospective tutor has been appointed a tutor mentor who will assist them in their training and support them through their first group of students, the training program will start in early 2018.
As part of the training program tutors will obtain the Gold training recognition through Greenwich University, which is similar to a PGCE
ELCAS
All our tutors will be registered with ELCAS, which means any service personnel wishing to enter into the funeral profession after leaving the services and seeking training will be put in touch with a BIFD tutor and all training costs will be covered by the services resettlement team
Relationship with Greenwich
Our relationship with Greenwich University has been strengthened and our courses is now accredited by the University and it is with immense gratitude we welcome Charne Green to our Conference, for the details of our relationship with Greenwich, I am going to ask Mr David Grainger to explain the progress made to date.
Graduation Ceremony
This year for the first time we will host a Graduation Ceremony during the banquette as recognition of the work our students put into obtaining the highest qualification available to our profession in this Country
In Conclusion
When I first got involved in education in 2007 I was told that the BIFD were the pre-eminent supplier of education in the profession, in 2017 I hope you agree we have proved that to be fact, but I assure you there is still much to do and we are continually reviewing everything we do to improve and enhance our courses and we plan to advance the qualifications yet further in the years ahead, who knows one day there may be a Degree in Funeral Service available through the BIFD