Globally recognised accreditation ups value for design students

20th November 2015 By: Donna Slater - Features Deputy Editor and Chief Photographer

Globally recognised  accreditation ups value for design students

ENHANCED CREDIBILITY The Draughting Academy’s new City & Guild accreditation will enhance the credibility of its students

Draughting institution The Draughting Academy has received accreditation from UK-based skills development institution City & Guilds, and claims to have ensured enhanced compatibility with the certification.

CEO Leon Smalberger tells Engineering News that, although many other tertiary education institutions in South Africa are also accredited by City & Guilds, Sandton- and Cape Town-based The Draughting Academy is the only institution to map its outcomes to those stipulated in the City & Guilds qualifications.

He says a major advantage of the City & Guilds accreditation is its international relevance. The institution, with a global footprint in about 80 countries, mostly in former Commonwealth countries, has become internationally recognised for its qualifications and those it certifies.

The Draughting Academy’s City & Guilds certification, obtained in September, complements its existing accreditation, most notably from the Quality Council for Trades and Occupation based in Pretoria, which enables the academy to provide further education and training from the national N4 to N6 programmes.

The Draughting Academy is also accredited as an examination centre for N4 to N6 engineering subjects.

The City & Guilds qualification has been incorporated into the academy’s 2016 courses and requires its students to submit an assignment for marking by City & Guilds.

Students can also qualify for two associated qualifications – an in-house The Draughting Academy certificate and the Department of Higher Education and Training’s external certificate in draughting, says The Draughting Academy head of academics Faan Schoeman.

Furthering Quality Management
To ensure and extend quality-management frameworks and implementation at The Draughting Academy, the institution is due to receive ISO 9001:2008 certification this month.

Smalberger states that the ISO 9001 certification will aid The Draughting Academy in maintaining its high levels of quality management, as in-house audits on quality management are performed half yearly. These audits are then sent to the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) for record-keeping, with ISO audits conducted at least once a year.

Schoeman highlights that ISO 9001 adds value to the work undertaken by The Draughting Academy personnel and students. “This ensures that the qualifications earned by students on graduation are measured against international standards of quality.”

The academy’s ISO 9001 application started in 2013, when the institution decided that quality management needed to be a unified factor in all its accreditation processes.