Open College Network accreditation
The international curriculum for the 72 hour Permaculture Design Course is accredited in the UK by the Permaculture Association (Britain). As such it is recognised globally, and it is also a pre-requisite for registering for the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design.
Some of the Permaculture Design Courses run in England and Wales, have an additional accreditation which shows how the course fits in with the UK’s further and adult education system, through the Open College Network. This is useful for people who want to use the Permaculture Design Course as a way of going on to other UK further and higher education courses, or to help them get into work using their permaculture knowledge, or maybe so that they can explain to clients what sort of qualifications they have, in order to be selling their design consultancy services. Also where Brighton Permaculture Trust supports people working towards their Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design it has a strong preference for supporting people who have achieved accreditation at level 3 for their Permaculture Design Course as we find this gives a better grounding for progression to the diploma.
Brighton Permaculture Trust’s Building Sustainable Communities is one of these courses. Through the Open College Network, it has acquired a value of 12 credits at Level 3.
This means that the student will have done 120 hours worth of study about Permaculture at a level which is the same as an NVQ level 3, or an A level course. Both of those examples are large national qualifications, and the Permaculture Design Course is not equivalent to a whole qualification. However an employer or a college or a university should know that it means someone has put in a measurable learning ‘effort’. It means that colleges would see it as proof of an ability to study, and could offer entry into related courses at the same level, or above, possibly without the need to be assessed for similar work, or maybe with some ‘time off’ equivalent to the course. (The equivalent number of credits needed by an adult with no A levels to get into university is 60 at level 3, through an OCN approved Access to HE course.)
Brighton Permaculture Trust has collaborated with other course leaders in the UK to reach an agreed set of Learning Outcomes which reflect the Permaculture Design Course’s syllabus, and to reward students who wish to gain the credits as well as the PAB’s certificate for the Permaculture Design Course.
The Learning Outcomes are listed in four units, called
• The principles and ethics of permaculture
• Ecological applications of Permaculture
• The applications of Permaculture to settlements and communities
• Permaculture Design workshop.
All students on Brighton Permaculture Trust’s Permaculture Design Course spend longer than 72 hours applying some of the course work in practice, and in creating a portfolio showing how the learning has paid off in terms of changing one’s lifestyle – usually one of the main reasons why people come on the Permaculture Design Course in the first place. This means that anyone going through Building Sustainable Communities, who joins in with what’s on offer, tries out the suggested activities, and contributes to the final Design Workshop, will be doing enough ‘work’ to achieve the 12 OCN credits. All that’s needed is the course portfolio to be handed in… which can be a simple folder of the work done, or a ‘work of art’, as wished!
Anyone wishing to achieve OCN accreditation on Brighton Permaculture Trust’s course will need to pay additional fees to cover OCN charges.
Someone who wants to follow the action-learning based Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design, and become a Diploma Apprentice, will normally be expected to have achieved the 72 hour Permaculture Design Course. At Brighton Permaculture Trust we feel that if you can achieve the 12 OCN Level 3 credits through our Building Sustainable Communities course, you will have had a good grounding in action learning, and we will be more than happy to consider tutoring and supporting your Diploma study through the Brighton Permaculture Trust Support Group.