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Message from the Accreditation Committee
October 07, 2011
Dear Massage Therapy colleagues:
As many of you know the Board of Directors of the CMTBC at a Special Board meeting voted to eliminate the 3000-hour length requirement from our Basis of Accreditation. This change means that massage therapy programs in British Columbia will base their curriculum on our educational documents without adhering to a pre-specified time constraint. Soon the Accreditation Committee will review the Basis of Accreditation document to determine if any other sections will need modification as a result of this change. Once the Board approves any further document revisions, the Accreditation Committee will then accept and assess significant curriculum change proposals made by a school. School curriculums and schedules should remain unchanged until they can be reviewed and approved by the Accreditation Committee, and prospective registrants from BC will only be allowed to write the CMTBC Registration Examinations once they have graduated from accredited programs.
Because this topic has caused so much debate in the profession, the Accreditation Committee would like to clarify the facts in this case.
The facts are:
· It is the role of the Accreditation Committee to develop and maintain the competencies, or educational requirements, necessary for an RMT to enter into practice.
· The removal of the 3000-hour requirement will not change the educational requirements, which are based on the Occupational Competency Profile and the Guidelines for Foundational Knowledge. Neither of these documents is affected by this change.
· The inter-jurisdictional occupational competencies were adopted in 2010, and are now being used in all provinces where massage therapy is a regulated profession.
· Students are still required to take 550 hours of clinic instruction beyond practical instruction in the classroom before they can graduate.
· It is the school’s responsibility to make sure that all competencies are being taught in a way that guarantees registration candidates can perform each competency ‘repeatedly and reliably’.
· It is up to the school to develop a curriculum and schedule for the students at their institution. It is therefore the school’s responsibility to prescribe the length of the course.
· If a school does not devote sufficient time to the competencies and educational guidelines, its accreditation may be affected and its graduates will be much less likely to successfully complete the Registration Examinations.
· It is the role of the Accreditation Committee to maintain and monitor the standards of education, and it is the role of the school to develop a working curriculum based on those standards.
As we move forward together in this time of growth and change, we ask for your patience. The Accreditation Committee would like to thank you for your support in this dynamic time in our profession.
CMTBC Accreditation Committee