Comms Council licences UK education programme to roll out in Australia

By AdNews | 16 September 2014
 
The Communications Council chief executive, Margaret Zabel.

In a bid to create a global advertising education standard, keep people in the industry and deliver a structured professional development programme, The Communications Council has teamed up with its UK counterpart, The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). The IPA's programme will roll out over here.

The IPA already makes the majority of its curriculum available online, which it said has led to its take-up “spreading organically” overseas, but the agreement will make The Communications Council the first industry body to formally implement the courses internationally.

In practice this includes a licensing agreement from the IPA, but involves localising the qualifications to meet the Australian market.

The Communications Council chief executive Margaret Zabel said that the promotion of educational development in advertising will help to halt the poaching of key talent from other industries.

Speaking at the launch of the program, Zabel added that the aim is to help raise the profile of the industry and advertising as a profession.

The partnership with the IPA is designed to offer a globally recognised qualification that Zabel said is the "next evolution" of AdSchool. Some AdSchool courses will be replaced by IPA certified courses.

The content has been localised to that it adheres to local codes and regulations and courses will be run by local senior talent.

The first IPA qualification to be rolled-out in Australia under the agreement will be the Foundation certificate, which provides junior advertisers with a base understanding of the brand communications process.

The first experiential course to be rolled-out by The Communications Council will be the Campaign Planning course; a three day, intensive residential course which takes delegates from a client brief to campaign solution.

Margaret Zabel added that the Communications Council would like the qualifications to become an industry standard, reaching 80 or 90% uptake of the foundation certificate over the next few years.

In June this year, Zabel confirmed The Communications Council would refocus on “forging alignment with relevant bodies” following calls by Clemenger BBDO chief executive Rob Morgan for the council to increase it's advocacy for the industry.

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