When HRH The Princess Royal presented The Training Foundation with a Queen’s Award for Innovation for the Training Accreditation Programme (TAP®), it was the first time that any training programme had ever received this prestigious recognition.
The TAP qualifications framework for L&D professionals comprises a full-spectrum range of modular, skills-based short-courses that can build to Diplomas in Learning Facilitation, Learning Design, e-Learning, L&D Consultancy and L&D Management.
The Queen’s Awards judging panel explained it was impressed by the assessable models built into each module. Before TAP, assessment of a trainer’s performance (if attempted at all) tended to be highly subjective, based on the assessor’s personal opinion.
For the first time, best-practice profiles now enable objective assessment of the practitioner’s skills. For example, a training session is assessed against 3 profiles; Structure, Style and Activity balance, in total comprising more than 40 criteria. More information is available in the ‘About’ section of the website.
Skills-based assessment, rather than simply testing for knowledge, is far more indicative of a trainer’s capability. It is the rigour and consistency underpinning all TAP qualifications that makes the post-nominal letters ‘TAP.cert’ or ‘TAP.dip’ keenly sought after by employers. Today, more than 26,000 L&D practitioners, employed in some 1,400 organisations hold one or more TAP qualifications. This includes more than half the FTSE100 major employers.
Many L&D functions, having standardised on the TAP methodologies are Accredited TAP L&D Partners. This enables them to have internal Certified TAP Assessors to quality assure their L&D service provision, another reason why TAP is now embedded across all strands of the public and private sectors. For example, Certified TAP e-Learning Design Assessors now monitor quality across all NHS Trusts in Wales.
A short video, ‘What makes TAP different’ may be viewed from the home page of www.tap.training.