I hear and fully empathize with those that may struggle with financing training. This isn't our intention and has been the largest stumbling block to launching the new courses. In the end, we had to challenge our objectives; is our primary objective to create the most inexpensive education possible or to create the most impactful and meaningful education as cost effectively as possible?
The industry in the UK has been plagued by cheap and cheerful short courses for a considerable time. We were involved. We tried to compete by creating courses that were highly accessible but at the cost of being comprehensive (with the aim that students would hopefully continue their education after the short course). I think we did a fairly good job with that, however it was always very frustrating for us knowing there was sooo much more to cover. Knowing damn well that each student needed more than a "foundation" to really make it.
There are shed loads of short, quick and fairly cheap courses out there. We could carry on, but with what aim? Bums on seats? We had to ditch the competitive mindset. We had to remember what we are trying to achieve. We had to do this because NOT doing it just ends up costing the students and the industry.
If our objective is to prepare a student to the best of our ability to enter into the marketplace, prepared to be successful in the least amount of time possible, we had to step out of that sphere of cheap, cheerful and under prepared. We had to take a stand to stop pretending that a four, five, six or even 10 day course was sufficient to properly obtain a return on a students investment of time and money.
90% of the course costs are down to educator fees. Which are VERY well earned. Considering the educator will make or break the success of the student, their costs are a tremendous value. We could water that educator down by having 10, 12, 16 or even 32 students per class - but again, we violate our real objective: The best education and preparation possible. More days = more fees. Another important cost factor of the novice course is the international ITEC qualification. All things considered, the cost for training + the shed load of kit + course time is phenomenal value. Does that make it any easier for some? Sadly not.
No one is more bummed by that than us. We knew the new education program would mean fewer students, but we also know it will mean better equipped professionals that will radically improve their return on their investment in a significantly shorter span of time. Isn't that what education should really be about? It is that or it's about bums on seats. We are not a bums on seats company so we had to stop acting like one.
When you compare length of courses and the cost of courses to other countries, it is still an incredible value. The courses in the US, Russia and most other countries in the world are far longer and far more expensive. That isn't to say this isn't - but rather some feel it is more expensive simply because their point of reference has been a bar that has (for years) been much too low (at the expense of our industry as a whole).
We ran 2 pilot courses of the novice training to tune and tweak. The results were seriously awesome. The graduates are making far more money and are far busier offering more services at a higher confidence level than the typical foundation graduate. But that doesn't take rocket science to figure out. Most of us experienced (the hard way) that the more you invest in education, the more successful you will be.
All this doesn't mean we aren't listening. Just trying to shed some light
Let me see if I can tackle some of the questions raised so far (forgive me if I miss something!)
Financing, installments & such
This is something we have looked into for over a year (and continue to do so). Government financing was an insane mess of red tape that would ultimately add stupid administrative costs to the classes while radically reducing our ability to teach non draconian, informed and modern education. Though this would have made it easier for many, it would have ruined much of the whole reason we were implementing the change in the first place. So we stopped pursuing.
We met with finance companies, but ultimately we felt their terms were too onerous on the student.
We have looked at the complexities of payments, though we have yet to find a way to pull this off yet. We will continue to work hard at this.
We have also looked into the ability to provide scholarships and such. Again, we haven't found an answer yet - but we will.
Separate Mani/Pedi
Currently, your best bet is to take the course you are after before the end of the year. This doest mean we won't ever separate them in the future, however the efficiencies of merging them far outweigh the costs of doing them separately so we had to make a call. Hopefully it pays off in far better, more rounded professionals better equipped to make more money performing a range of services.
Using current qualifications toward ITEC
I can't really answer this yet. The ITEC partnership is specifically designed to be partnered with the novice course. Saying that, I am fairly confident that any courses you have done can help toward an ITEC or other NVQ (or equivalent) awarding qualification. There are simply cost implications and gaps that may need to be filled in.
Thanks for giving us an opportunity to explain, hope this helps give some insight. Change sucks, but so does a hollow qualification.
Keep the conversation going. We are all ears. (er... in this case... eyes!)
