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Institute of Counselling
Institute of Counselling was founded in 1985 as a Christian based, not for profit independent educational charity. It is committed to promoting pastoral care throughout the services it provides.

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The Institute of Counselling recognises that our students may have different needs to be met when making a course choice. Some of you may wish to use your studies with us to build towards a higher educational qualification and may do so by selecting one of our courses with modules accredited by either Glasgow Caledonian University or the University of the West of Scotland. If you do not have any formal qualifications this is also a good place to start.

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Accreditation

Introduction

In July 2014, the Institute of Counselling has become an SCQF approved Credit Rating Body (CRB) through the SCQF Partnership, allowing it to make decisions about the SCQF level and credit points allocated to its Counselling, CBT and Coaching and Mentoring courses. The IoC is now one of eight organistations along with FE colleges and higher education institutions and the Scottish Qualifications Authorities to follow rigorous quality assured procedures to credit rate their own qualifications onto the SCQF by allocating an SCQF level and SCQF credit points. Once a qualification has an SCQF level and credit points it attracts national and international recognition for the learners who achieve it.

A selection of courses offered by the Institute of Counselling are given an academic value in the form of credits and level through use of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) either credit rated and levelled by the IoC or by Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU). It is important for our students to appreciate what this means before embarking on their courses and whether or not this learning will suit their purpose.

What is the SCQF?

The SCQF is the official framework measuring academic merit in Scotland, comparing the wide range of Scottish qualifications. It covers achievements such as those from school, college, university, and many work-based qualifications. It does this by giving each qualification a level and a number of credit points. The level of a qualification shows how difficult the learning is. The credit points show how much learning is involved in achieving that qualification. Each credit point represents an average of 10 hours of learning.

The SCQF can:

help you decide how you progress in your learning;
help you understand qualifications you are not familiar with;
help employers understand different types of qualifications and help with the development of your skills;
help colleges and universities identify the level that has been studied in a particular subject and make it easier to transfer credit points between different learning programmes; and
provide recognition of other areas of your learning that may contribute to your personal development and your goals for the future.

Who uses the SCQF?

All Scottish universities and colleges are now using SCQF levels and credit points to describe their courses, if these are included in the Framework. A wide range of other learning is also being recognised using SCQF levels and credits. Some employers are using SCQF levels instead of, or as well as, types of qualification when they advertise jobs.

How does the SCQF work outside Scotland?

The SCQF also helps to illustrate the relationships between Scottish qualifications and those in the rest of the UK, Europe and beyond, which can clarify opportunities for international progression routes and credit transfer. The SCQF has been referenced to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), meaning that there is now an easy way to compare the level of qualifications of the countries in Europe who have developed their own National Qualifications Framework. to see how this works click in the table(LHS) produced by the Quality Assurance agency for Higher Education www.qaa.ac.uk

For more information on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework, visit www.scqf.org.uk. For information on the SCQF level and credit points for learning programmes which have been credit rated, search the SCQF database online