On Wednesday 29th March 2017, Seamus Kavanagh (picture above (right), with FIATA ABVT Chairman Thomas Sim (left)) presented Ireland’s version of the FIATA Diploma course to FIATA’s Advisory Body Vocational Training (ABVT). FIATA’s ABVT are responsible for investigating all global FIATA Diploma programmes to ensure that the Minimum Standards (guidance on topics to be covered for each Module) are appropriately implemented and to ensure that suitable training methodology is employed. With Representatives from across FIATA’s global membership of Freight Forwarding professionals, this group is best positioned to review the course material and ensure that the content is relevant and up to date with the latest industry regulations and market place information.
Ireland’s FIATA Diploma programme is somewhat unique among the 54 participating FIATA National Association’s that offer this course, given its online approach. A full demonstration of IIFA’s methods was presented to the assembled ABVT and following a thorough questions and answers session, IIFA was presented with a Re-Validation certificate. Of particular note from this re-validation was FIATA’s praise for Ireland’s results with doubling of webinar output across the 2015 – 2016 year group and its international achievement with its course offerings. As part of the 2015 – 2016 class group, Ireland worked with a Participant based in the USA who did not have a local option for this programme. The appeal of the FIATA Diploma to this participant was the international recognition the Diploma programme could provide and IIFA worked with FIATA’s ABVT and that individual Participant in order to be the first FIATA National Association to deliver training internationally.
Regarding Ireland’s place on the global FIATA Diploma scale, between 1996 – 29th March 2017, there have been 12,944 FIATA Diplomas issued worldwide. 523 of these have been to Ireland. Within Europe, the top Country for FIATA Diploma is France with 1396 however Ireland is within the top 5 and continues to grow.
This was the second re-validation for Ireland, with the course having been validated in 2008 and re-validated in 2013. Previous to this, Ireland did have a FIATA Diploma programme available through FAS between 1996 – 2010. At the time of writing, Ireland through FAS issued 361 FIATA Diploma Certificates while IIFA, since September 2008, has issued 162 directly. The present class group has 35 Participants and the 2017 – 2018 group, the tenth class group, will commence in September of this year.
