AFA AdSchool takes industry to higher ground Sonja Koremans
The advertising industry’s body has moved to boost investment in training through a beefed-up and government accredited graduate program.
After a rigorous two-year application process, The New South Wales Department of Education granted the Advertising Federation of Australia’s 15-year-old AdSchool division stand-alone status in NSW this week making it one of less than 50 organisations in the state to achieve recognition as a higher education institution alongside universities.
The job now will be for the AFA to push to obtain government registration for its education facility in other states, with Melbourne first on the list.
Lesley Brydon, AFA executive director, said backed by more courses and new branding, the government endorsement would deliver greater local and global recognition for AdSchool graduates and will ultimately create a more professional and credible image for the advertising industry. “We have been constantly committed to raising the standard of professionalism in the industry and therefore raising the AdSchool’s academic status has been extremely important to us,” Brydon said.
“To date the AFA’s courses have been accredited by universities in each state, but we wanted to be able to provide an AFA Graduate Certificate in Advertising Communications which has the same status as a university degree. Now we have the equivalent to a post graduate degree at, say, UTS or RMIT.”
She added: “That will further improve the credibility of our institution and show that as an industry we are focused on our skills and professionalism.”
As part of the changes, there will now be four distinct core strands to the AdSchool program: Connection, Strategy, Management and Creativity.
The changes also includes the launch of five new courses and two workshops.
They include Brand Development in association with Naked and Unilever; Innovative Marketing Communications with Host and Contagious; PR 2.0 with One Green Bean; and Effective Healthcare Communication with the AFA Healthcare Communication Council.
Brendan Tansey, Euro RSCG CEO, graduated from the AFA’s institution in 1995 and said its move to improve its profile would attract greater industry investment in the facility.
“I think this certainly gives AdSchool more street cred versus other qualifications, and it’s not a cheap course to do so anything that it has been granted to increase its recognition helps when it comes to agencies allocating a training budget for it,” Tansey said.
Collin Segelov, the Australian Association of National Advertisers executive director, said new and improved courses next year, particularly digital media-related, and the course recognition by the Government would help address the dire recruitment situation in the industry.
“We think it’s an excellent outcome and well deserved and we look forward to the contribution that it will make to the up-skilling of the advertising agency sector.”
Jim Moser, AFA board chairman, added: “This is a tremendous achievement, we know that the Government grants accreditation only when strict business and academic criteria are met.
“It’s extremely rewarding to gain that endorsement not least because it shows that we are aiming to encourage best practice in our business.”
As part of an industry makeover, the AFA also launched an agency accreditation program in February last year.
In May this year a total of 112 AFA members had successfully achieved full accreditation.
