Just wondering how Lovely's response could be deemed as being personal opinion and with the assertion that the same response is not factual when exactly the same thing is proffered as a rebuttal. Now that's confusing.
So while this thread is now off on a tangent, I trained as a nail technician and a beauty therapist in Australia - which is a bit different to the NVQ system in content, length, industry standard and structure but runs along similar industry lines. Yay me
I want to know if directly after you completed your NVQ 2 beauty therapy training and took your first salon job, did you consider yourself to be fully competent and ready for the role of beauty therapist?
Although nail technology is part of the beauty therapy training package, I undertook my training separately in a nail technology course. When I went onto train in beauty therapy, I was trade tested and given an exemption from the related modules so that I did not have to do them again. My nail teachers were all working nail technicians and some of them were award winners. Incidentally, although I did not train with them, the nail teachers at the college where I took my beauty therapy training were all working nail techs too. As part of the beauty therapy diploma, we had to complete an industry placement where we were supervised and tested to industry standard so on completion we were not only industry competent but certified as such by the industry itself.
Did your employer offer you more training? How did they provide this for you?
Yes they did. It was product specific re the skincare system used. This is commonplace given that colleges provide one or two skincare systems.
Were there certain treatments you would've liked to have spent more time practising/learning about at college?
Not really. Each module was quite comprehensive and every Friday was clinic day where we were practicing our skills on the public so the learning process was well rounded. The college I attended offered the spa stream so if there were any treatments I wanted to do more of it was due to personal use and not necessarily further learning purposes!
The college I attended adhered to some pretty strict policies concerning attendance, dress, behaviour, course content, assessment and pass rates etc which weeded out the less committed right at the beginning and stood us in good stead when we hit industry. We also sat ITEC and CIDESCO exams in conjunction with our own and, quite frankly, I found our own ones to be of a higher standard. Needless to say all of us had jobs waiting for us prior to graduation.
I believe training is as effective as those who provide it. The college I chose was not cheap to attend but it set standards it did not compromise on. And at the end of the day, I feel that really made the difference.