Benchmarking and Quality Standards

Our Public Quality Framework

These are the questions we ask of every course. The scale of the evidence varies: a short public course should not be made to imitate a major formation programme, but both should be clear, honest, usable, and appropriate to their purpose.

The Standards We Consult

No single external framework is suitable for every course. A safeguarding course, a short continuing-development course, and a substantial ministerial formation pathway have different purposes. We use each reference point only where it is relevant.

Consulting a standard does not mean adopting every feature of the organisation that published it. It means asking disciplined questions, recording evidence, identifying gaps, and improving the course where improvement is needed.

Who the Benchmarking Bodies Are

The matrices draw upon accrediting agencies, membership associations, professional bodies, and quality frameworks. These are not interchangeable. The Institute uses their published standards as independent reference points; inclusion here does not claim membership, accreditation, certification, approval, or endorsement.

Why We Publish the Evidence

Education within the independent sacramental movement and other small church settings takes many forms. Some providers lawfully operate under religious exemptions, confer honorary awards, or use bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral titles for ecclesiastical programmes. Such awards may carry genuine personal, vocational, or ecclesial meaning, and a title alone does not justify dismissing the work or service behind it.

At the same time, an exemption, an honorary designation, or an academic-sounding title does not by itself demonstrate workload, educational level, assessment, moderation, learner support, quality review, or external recognition. When those details are not published, prospective learners and church leaders cannot readily judge what an award represents or compare it fairly with other provision.

The Institute has chosen a deliberately transparent approach. We do not present certificates of formation as academic degrees, use honorary degrees as evidence of assessed learning, or imply recognition that has not been granted. We publish the purpose, audience, expected workload, assessment, standards, limitations, costs, and recognition status of our courses so that you can make an informed judgement.

This approach also supports compliance with the South African legal framework in which we operate. The Institute is the educational body of the Apostolic Old Catholic Mission, a non-profit company (NPC) registered in South Africa; corporate registration is not the same as registration as a private higher education institution, and we never present it as such. The Higher Education Act 101 of 1997 regulates private higher education and restricts certain institutional and honorary academic titles. The South African Government’s registration guidance explains that providers offering recognised higher-education programmes require the appropriate registration, accreditation, and National Qualifications Framework (NQF) registration. We therefore name our awards as ecclesiastical formation or course-completion awards, do not imply degree or NQF status where none has been granted, and publish recognition limits plainly. This protects learners, supports legal compliance, and keeps our work clear, transparent, and honest.

This is not offered as a judgement upon friends, colleagues, or institutions that make different choices. It is simply the Institute’s own commitment: our claims should be no grander than the evidence, and the evidence should be open to view.

What Our Ratings Do—and Do Not—Mean

A rating describes the evidence found in the course and its design. It does not turn the Institute into a member of, or an accredited provider recognised by, the bodies whose standards are consulted.

Completing a course does not by itself guarantee ordination, licensing, appointment, employment, professional registration, immigration status, or civil recognition. Where a church, employer, regulator, or partner organisation has additional requirements, those requirements remain separate unless a written agreement expressly says otherwise.

Safeguarding for Clergy (A1): Public Benchmarking

Safeguarding for Clergy (A1) is a free foundation course of approximately 15 hours for clergy, ministers, lay leaders, chaplains, pastoral workers, and others who exercise trust or authority. It combines safeguarding theology, ministerial ethics, practical response, and cross-jurisdiction legal awareness.

Important limits

A1 is education, not legal advice, clinical training, therapy, investigative training, a background check, or authorisation for ministry. Law and statutory guidance change and differ by place. You must verify the current position with the relevant authority, your organisation’s safeguarding policy, and, where necessary, a suitably qualified local lawyer.

View Safeguarding for Clergy (A1) →

Licentiate in Diaconal Ministry: Detailed Tick-Matrix

The Licentiate in Diaconal Ministry (LDM) is a major ministerial formation pathway, so its benchmarking is broader than that of a short course. The matrix lets prospective learners and partner organisations see how each formation domain compares with published theological-education and professional-ministry reference points.

Matrix key: ✓ = meets or aligns with the reference point; P = partially meets or alignment depends on context; I = governed principally by the Institute’s own ecclesial standard; — = not applicable.

Online Delivery: Detailed Tick-Matrix

This matrix compares the Institute’s online course environment with Quality Matters, the Online Learning Consortium, and ACTEA open and distance-learning guidance. The rating is scaled to the purpose of each course.

Matrix key: ✓ = meets or aligns with the reference point; P = partially meets or remains under continuing improvement; — = not applicable. Interaction may be deliberately adapted where privacy or safeguarding makes open discussion unsuitable.

How Courses Are Kept Current

Benchmarking is not a badge attached once and then forgotten. After a course is used, the Institute reviews the evidence available to it: learner feedback, completion patterns, assessment performance, tutor observations, accessibility, unclear instructions, broken links, resource currency, and whether the course still meets its published outcomes.

Courses involving law, safeguarding, professional practice, or rapidly changing guidance receive particular attention to currency and careful qualification. Major revisions are version-controlled so that changes can be traced and reviewed.

The depth of review is proportionate to the course. A major formation pathway requires fuller scrutiny than a short continuing-development resource, but the same public principles apply: clarity, integrity, appropriate challenge, usable delivery, honest limits, and continuing improvement.