Education provider Kaplan Professional has followed the Financial Planning Association in imploring the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority to revisit the fundamental purpose and delivery of continuing professional development.
Kaplan’s white paper presents views that largely conflict with the FPA’s, but Kaplan chief executive Brian Knight says the proposals don’t cancel out each other.
The core of the FPA’s white paper is the professional dimensions model, which focuses on seven primary areas, or dimensions, for CPD, including ethics, critical thinking, and professional conduct. The paper also reiterates the association’s recommendation that CPD hours should be 30 hours a year completed by all relevant advice providers.
In contrast, Kaplan proposes a shift from this time-based agenda in its white paper, titled Lifelong learning: The Future for Professional Advisers. Kaplan, referring to its suggested framework, “advocates a move away from CPD being judged on time spent, but instead focusing on learning outcomes”.
The paper’s author, Kaplan head of CPD Jennifer Hornsey, explains that this approach, based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, “provides a hierarchy of learning outcomes and a means of assessing the complexity and specificity of learning provided”.
The framework centres on breaking down learning into six main outcomes according to their intrinsic value and attributing CPD points accordingly; for example, remembering is a basic skill and developing it is pegged at the first level, worth one CPD point, whilst evaluating and creating are much more complex and sit higher up Bloom’s scale, hence they are worth five and six CPD points, respectively.
The Kaplan paper also advocates for a future CPD program that embraces technology and incorporates the kinds of high-tech learning methods that are in place now and will emerge in the future.
“Technology is giving us great leaps forward in how education can be delivered – things like artificial intelligence, micro-learning, and adaptive learning,” Hornsey says. “We don’t know what tech will come about, but Bloom’s method keeps you open to technological advances and allows for those things to be incorporated.”
The Kaplan and FPA papers both assert that CPD should not be treated as a compliance burden. Each document insists that CPD should instead be viewed as an opportunity for ongoing learning and professional growth.
Speaking to Professional Planner about the release of the Kaplan whitepaper, Knight is quick to point out that the document doesn’t repudiate the FPA’s suggestions to FASEA, it just provides a separate perspective that addresses methodology for accreditation.
“The FPA have been transparent about its approach and what its policy has been, and its whitepaper is a continuation of that,” he says. “What we’re saying doesn’t contradict or oppose the FPA model – they work quite well together. We’re just taking a broader approach.”
Knight makes it clear there is no competition or contention between the education provider and the association.
“The FPA was among the first to ask to see the paper,” he acknowledges. “We have a great relationship with them and we fully support them.”
