ETBI-News-Summer-2016-web

the State, firstly with Sheridan College
in Canada through which links were
made with Disney, and this led to
Ballyfermot having the first ever fullyaccredited
programme in animation
outside of Canada and the US. In a
sense, Ballyfermot College helped set
up the animation industry in Ireland
after consultation with the IDA, the Irish
Enterprise Board and the newly-arrived
animation company Sullivan Bluth in
1985.
However, these courses succeeded
in the face of considerable opposition
from CDVEC. In some cases, CDVEC
was not aware of some of these
developments.
The college continued to seek validation,
accreditation and certification abroad
during this crucial stage of development
between the mid-80s and the eventual
establishment of the National Council
for Vocational Awards (NCVA) in 1991.
By this time, FE had been going for
quite a few years without national
certification. Indeed, it was almost ten
years after the NCVA was established
that the Qualifications Education and
Training Act (1999) created the National
Qualifications Authority of Ireland (NQAI),
the Further Education and Training
Awards Council (FETAC) and the Higher
Education and Training Awards Council
(HETAC) to provide an administrative
structure for the development,
recognition and award of education and
training qualifications in the State.
Ballyfermot College evolved into a
college of both further and higher
education with courses ranging from
level 5 to honours degree level 8. After
1994 BCFE discontinued the Leaving
Certificate to focus more specifically
on these new PLC programmes which
had become hugely popular. The college
was leading in these new areas, and
from a very early stage, staff who had
been involved with the CDU learned
about quality assurance, validation and
accreditation. Pre-employment courses
in Ballyfermot College had a range of
certifying bodies which included Bolton
Street for engineering and CERT for
catering and tourism. However, there
were no obvious bodies to validate
or accredit the newer courses being
pioneered at the college.
The College’s venture into ‘foreign’
accreditation, in the late 80’s, with
Sheridan College for the Higher
Diploma in Animation programme,
was the beginning of what was to
become a regular feature of its quest
for certification of new programmes.
The ‘Sheridan’ experience laid the
foundation for new learning for those
teachers in the college who were writing
new syllabi and demonstrating the
resourcefulness and quality required for
developing authentic programmes. Over
time, Ballyfermot College engaged with
a range of accreditation bodies outside
of the State - Pitman for secretarial,
the Joint Examining Board for Teaching
Diplomas in IT and Word Processing,
City and Guilds for Radio and Television,
the Royal Academy for Drama and
Presentation and BTEC for Business,
Social Care and Media. All of these
bodies had their own validation and
accreditation processes with specific
pre-requisites in terms of resources
and quality control. This engagement
required the college to implement a
range of relatively new processes such
as module and assignment design,
assessment, moderation, external
examination and internal quality
verification.
The early 90s saw the development
of the first BTEC Higher National
Diplomas (HNDs) in Business, Social
Care and Media Production and an
honours degree in Media Production
Management. In fact, the college’s
success in implementing the quality
assurance processes referred to above
was so good that it was recognised
as an asset to be called upon by the
newly established NCVA and several
of the college’s staff were seconded
to the NCVA to develop new national
programmes at levels 4 and 5. Teachers
in the college become expert in
developing new educational programmes
and a certain synergy began to develop
across programmes. For example,
elements of business were brought into
media and combined with research,
marketing and law to form the basis of
relevant courses.
Jerome Morrissey, the Principal, believed
the College could contribute to the new
growth in art and cultural industries.
There was also a significant interest in
a growing cohort of potential students
looking for something different and
in keeping with contemporary popular
culture. The Radio and Television
Act (1988) ended RTE’s monopoly in
public service broadcasting, bringing
a demand for training for those who
would be employed to operate the new
commercial stations.
In order to compete with those with
a more traditional education to
degree level, the College explored the
development of two-year courses which
would more adequately prepare students
for work in these new industries. The
college already had a good relationship
with BTEC Edexcel in the UK as they
had validated a number of one-year
programmes at National Diploma level.
In the early 90’s three new two-year
programmes were devised in the college
and proposed to BTEC for validation.
These were in Social Care, Business
Studies and Media Production. These
"Ballyfermot sought accreditation from outside of the State, firstly
with Sheridan College in Canada through which links were made
with Disney, and this led to Ballyfermot having the first ever fullyaccredited
programme in animation outside of Canada and the US."
Section 1 | National and European Events issue 3 – 2016 ETBI 45