Remember when a government aide sent a memo to staff suggesting that ‘9/11’ might be a good time to ‘bury’ any controversial news?
So much is changing at present that it might be all too easy to miss out on contributing to the debate surrounding changes, proposed by the GOC, to the way we qualify and how we stay up to date once qualified.
Every time a student tells me that voting is a waste of time, my heart sinks. I know they will be the first to object in future when politicians make decisions that affect them adversely. My brood now always vote, having been fired up by the changes to student tuition fees or, for my daughter in the United States, anything Trump says. And even if it seems a vote is worthless (and electoral systems do undermine voter significance), you cannot moan about something unless you have tried to resist it.
The door has now shut on consultation about the GOC proposals for CET change. Most of the planned changes (CPD to replace CET, dropping competency strictures, allowing unaccredited CET) seem sensible, as suggested recently by the AOP. Fingers crossed that there will be adequate auditing to stop some CPD veering towards commercial bias.
There is still one month to go, however, to contribute to the debate on the future of qualification as a DO or optom. What are your thoughts about a single education provider being responsible for each student’s journey to registration as an optometrist and getting rid of the two-tier degree/pre-reg model? Could this make an apprenticeship qualification more likely? Now is the time to have your say.
The consultation is live until October 19, 2020. Add your thoughts at https://consultation.optical.org. If the outcome is not to your taste, at least you can say you tried.