Permaculture Association (PA) Certifying Teacher’s Register (CTR) and PA Permaculture Design Course (PDC) Certificates Policy
Why have a policy?
This policy has been created to meet the need of ensuring that teachers offering PA certified PDCs have the experience required to deliver the courses effectively. To the best knowledge of the EWG, there seems no clear and current guidance around who can, and who cannot offer PA PDC certificates before this policy.
Policy formation history
This policy was developed in 2013 and 2014, then sent out for consultation to teachers and the PA Council in 2014.
In 2015 it was extensively updated following the comments received.
The Policy
Which teachers can now receive PA PDC certificates to certify their PDCs?
Permaculture Association (PA) Permaculture Design Course (PDC) certificates are only given out by the Association to people on the PA Certifying Teacher’s Register (CTR).
What is the CTR?
The CTR is a list of teachers who are able to certify their PDCs with the PA PDC certificate. The list is overseen by the Education Working Group, and used by the PA to respond to requests for PA PDC certificates.
How can a teacher get onto the CTR?
There are several ways to get onto the CTR – the certificated route, and the non certificated application route.
Certificated route –
Teachers meeting the following 2 criteria are added to the CTR on request:
Have a Permaculture Diploma from a Diploma system recognised by the PA Diploma Working Group.
Have a teaching qualification such as Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS) or similar
It is also highly recommended to have done a Permaculture teacher training course.
Non-certificated routes –
Teachers meeting either of the following criteria sets can apply to a peer group of CTR members and Learning and Network Demonstration (LAND) centre managers to be assessed for addition to the CTR. This assessing peer group is overseen by the PA Education Working Group.
Permaculture practitioners criteria
Existing PDC graduates who have –
1. Either taught at some level on at least 5 PDCs,
or have an approved teaching qualification such as PTTLS / PGCE or similar or higher
And
2. Either are responsible for a LAND centre,
or have been responsible for a substantive permaculture project for a period of at least 2 years and have undergone an assessment equivalent to that for a LAND centre,
or have a Permaculture Diploma from a Diploma system recognised by the PA Diploma Working Group.
Existing PDC teachers criteria –
(Only open for 2 years from the start of the policy) –
Existing teachers meeting all of the following criteria:
Already giving out PA certificates at the start of 2015
Have helped deliver at least 5 PDCs
Have been lead tutor on at least 3 PDCs (i.e. the person responsible for the quality of the course and the teaching on it)
Have taught on at least 1 PDC with a teacher listed on the CTR
Ongoing requirements
To stay on the CTR, teachers need to:
Be a member of the PA
Have filled out the most recent PDC Core Curriculum Checklist in respect of their PDCs content (the Checklist will be updated annually or longer, in response to its inherent feedback loops with teachers and others)
