Critics take aim at post-qualifying plan

Social workers could be deterred from undertaking
post-qualifying learning if the General Social Care Council changes
the framework, training accreditors say.

Plans to replace the staged system for post-qualifying with a
single qualification have been criticised by the England PQ
Consortia.

Shirley Ayres, chief officer of consortia member the Greater
London Post Qualifying Consortium, said the GSCC did not appear to
have listened to concerns or taken them on board.

She added that the flexibility of the current framework, which
starts with the PQ1 that takes between six months and a year to
complete, suited the diverse workforce.

Ayres said: “If you are a bright young thing who has already
done a degree, what is proposed might be OK.

“But there are also people in the sector who may have done a
non-graduate course 25 years ago and it could be a big jump for
them to be engaged in education again.”

GSCC chief executive Lynne Berry insisted that the council had
carried out an extensive consultation process, and that the
resulting approach developed had been backed by 70 per cent of
respondents.

A final decision on the framework will be made at a meeting
later this month.

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