IFPTI Unveils Interactive National Curriculum Standard
Battle Creek, Michigan (PRWEB) October 01, 2015 -- The International Food Protection Training Institute (IFPTI) unveiled its groundbreaking online Interactive National Curriculum Standard (INCS) website during the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Training Summit this week.
The National Curriculum Standard (NCS) was created with support from the FDA as one of the charges to the Partnership for Food Protection’s Training and Certification Workgroup. The NCS corresponds with the Food Safety Modernization Act’s call for an overhaul to the national approach to food safety. The FDA’s Division of Human Resource Development, the Partnership for Food Protection, and IFPTI have led the creation of the NCS over the past year.
The INCS is the online home of the National Curriculum Standard for all U.S. regulatory food and feed protection professionals. The INCS is comprised of both a national competency and curriculum framework which, together, define the performance expectations of the profession.
Competencies are the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to perform consistent and comparable work for a particular position in the food protection profession. Competencies for the Entry-Level have been vetted by the profession, while development of competencies for other professional levels (Advanced, Leadership, and Technical Specialist) are currently in progress.
The INCS will ultimately feature self-assessment tools to allow food protection professionals to compare how their own agency and staff measure up against the National Curriculum Standard. The INCS will identify courses available in each content area to address any of the agency’s competency gaps.
The INCS will also help training developers know which competencies need to be addressed in their training materials aimed at food protection professionals.
“The National Curriculum Standard, developed through IFPTI’s unique performance systems development process, is a major change to the professional development paradigm,” said Dr. Craig Kaml, IFPTI Senior Vice President. “The Interactive National Curriculum Standard is the virtual manifestation of the National Curriculum Standard and is the pathway to consistent, competent, and comparable work.”
Another feature of the INCS is the ability for any training entity to submit a course for inclusion on the site. Each submitted course will be reviewed to ensure it aligns with the content area’s competencies. For a fee, training entities will be able to have their course go through IFPTI’s official course review process and receive a certificate indicating alignment with content area competencies.
The INCS can be accessed at: http://incs.ifpti.org.
About IFPTI
IFPTI is a leading food protection organization dedicated to protecting the world’s food supply. Established in 2009, IFPTI is improving public health by building competency-based training and certification systems and cultivating leadership for the food protection community worldwide.
For more information, visit http://www.ifpti.org.
Funding for this program was made possible, in part, by the Food and Drug Administration through grant number 5U54FD004324-04; views expressed in written materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does any mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organization imply endorsement by the United States Government.
Jennifer Dama, IFPTI, http://www.ifpti.org, +1 (269) 441-4083, [email protected]
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