Are ACVA Courses Accredited?

ACVA offers professional certifications

All ACVA exams, courses and programs are competency-based professional certifications. They share a common base structure, scaffolded learning designs and are graded at different levels. Complete with an Academic Advisory Board to help ensure quality, ACVA is an industry-based, self-accredited learning and development organisation that offers professional certifications through taught courses and graded exams.

In this context, a professional certification is a formal recognition by the broader industry that relates to, and focuses on, the executive skills, knowledge and attributes (KSAs) needed to effectively and efficiently practice either voice teaching, voice research, composition, performance or arts management. Professional certifications have been used in many industries and over multiple decades to help identify appropriately skilled and qualified practitioners. For example, in the accounting sector a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) or Chartered Accountant (CA) are accounting graduates (from university courses) who undertake additional training and development, and who sit and pass structured exams, to be identified as certified professionals in their field of practice. In the medical field, you will see medical doctors with a variety of post-nominal letters after their name (e.g. FRACGP, FRACP, FRACS), most of which are professional certifications awarded by well-regarded and long-standing training organisations dedicated to specialist education of doctors. We are no different in this regard. In the music examinations sector, examinatinon bodies that provide professional certifications include: the Australian College of Vocal Arts (ACVA) (that’s us), the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB), Australian and New Zealand Cultural Arts (ANZCA), St. Cecilia School of Music, Con Brio Examinations to name just a few. The main difference between ACVA and the other certifying bodies mentioned above, is that our team offer accessible, competitive, highly engaging structured learning courses that our students complete before sitting for certain final exams and assessment. The other bodies do not offer this - they simply tell you what you need to prepare to sit the final exam - the rest is up to you (and your teacher, if you have one) to work out. Those bodies exist exclusively to validate your standard of practice at a point in time, whereas ACVA helps you develop the necessary skills, knowledge and attributes required to work at a superior level and to stay there (learning resilience and lifelong learning skills are a fundamental aspect of all our courses).

In other words, ACVA are committed to delivering the highest standard of structured training and certification to professional singing and acting teachers, singing performers, actors and other professional voice users in Australia, New Zealand and internationally. And we’ve built our model in a way that allows for exactly that, while keeping costs lower than tertiary education equivalents for our learning participants.

ACVA is a professional training and certification body

The use of the term ‘accreditation’ can be confusing. ACVA is not a higher education provider and is not an RTO. ACVA is, in fact, an accrediting body itself. That is, we train and accredit voice professionals, based on industry best practices and standards of knowledge, skills and attributes (KSAs) as identified by our industry leading experts and Academic Board. To avoid confusion, we use the term certification when we speak about our programs as ‘certifying’ programs for practitioners in the industry. Importantly, our programs are revised every year in the same way university and RTO programs work, and we have a stringent and independent internal self-accreditation process in place to ensure our programs are a cut above the rest.

What ‘accreditation’ means in the University & RTO context

Accreditation also means something else, though. Certain training and education providers must be ‘accredited’ to provide their courses and programs to students. Those types of organisations operate in a heavily regulated space and government bodies are involved in their regulation. In Australia, there are two main bodies that can formally ‘accredit’ these types of courses or programs. In the Higher Education sector, that responsibility falls on the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), and in the vocational education sector, it falls on the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA). This means, if you attend a university or a TAFE or other Registered Training Organisation (RTO), your course or program has likely been ‘accredited’ by one of those bodies. Accreditation is an important quality assurance method and it helps keep institutions honest, creating trust in the industry and with students, while helping to standardise educational outcomes. Our courses, programs and the resulting professional certifications that we offer are not legally subject to these regulatory requirements. As lecturers from within these organisations, we understand this very well, which is why we’ve built such a stringent self-accreditation program in-house at ACVA. Our approach and structure also enables our programs to be offered at a very reasonable cost, while still ensuring our students have access to some of the most active and respected academic leaders, trainers and educators in Australia and internationally.

Can ACVA certifications be used to enter an RTO or University program?

As is the case with almost any qualification (even Masters and PhD degrees), whether your qualification will be recognised by a different learning institution is entirely dependent on the RTO or University you’re applying to. It is almost exclusively at their sole discretion as to what previously completed courses, programs and professional experience their institution will recognise for program entry.

However, as proactive industry leaders, we are in regular contact with the vast majority of Conservatoriums of Music, Universities and RTOs that offer programs associated with the voice, particularly in the Australian and New Zealand music sectors. We take time to ensure institutional leaders and program coordinators around the country understand what goes into an ACVA program, our graduate attributes and outcomes. This is a big part of why ACVA graduates have fast become regarded as some of the most effective practitioners in the domestic industry. As such, our professional certifications are regularly recognised by Universities and RTOs as meeting their entry requirements, including at the post-graduate level. If in doubt, contact us for a discussion prior to enrolment. Our leadership team are always happy to discuss your specific planned educational pathway with you, and to help you make the appropriate enquiries with other institutions that you may be considering for future study, after completing your intended ACVA course.