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Academy Qualifications:
Policy, Strategy and Tactics

The Academy's Qualifications Programme will be active at two levels of study, namely at (i) secondary, high school final Certificate level and (ii) in the tertiary band of education at diploma rather than degree level — a level wherein the CA Academy will develop and offer two qualifications, namely (a) an Intermediate CA Diploma and (b) an Advanced CA Diploma. In the area of traditional university undergraduate and post-graduate degree training, the CA-Academy would build strategic, cooperative alliances as described below.

At Certificate level, the Academy's initial policy would be to provide enhancing and ancillary training and learning materials and several education process support service that will make CA Ecology principles & methods accessible, relevant and integrated with existing high school curriculums and any subjects where CA Ecology could add value.

At Tertiary Diploma level the Academy would develop and offer tuition in Unit Standards that are compliant with the education and qualification requirements of National Qualification Authorities (NQA's) in a manner that will enable the Academy to award its two CA Ecology Diplomas.  These CA Ecology Unit Standards will be placed in the public domain and managed within the frameworks of NQA's.

In general, the CA Academy would implement a philosophy that offers training and learning opportunities in two, umbilically intertwined strands, namely in the building of social- and natural-capital.  Social capital building would be the primary area of focus of agents that enable and empower the institutional dimensions of CA practice; e.g. as this support is provided by extension agents.  Natural capital building and preservation wold be the core focus of front-line CA Ecologists; i.e. mostly CA practicing farmers and applied CA Ecology research workers.  However, the two strands will be treated as autopoietic components that are as inter-dependent as are two individuals locked into a 'Siamese twin' syndrome.  In particular, the Farmer Field School approach, now augmented by the addition of a formally recognized qualifications layer within NQA's, will be the interaction and integration interface between the support services offered by off-farm extension agents on the one hand, and farmers as primary CA Ecology practitioners on the other hand.

An immediate priority would be to offer in-service and on-farm learning and qualifying opportunities for extension agents and farmers, respectively.  In both cases that which the learners are doing in their careers and lives would provide the 'classrooms' where the CA Academy's education 'happens'.

Finally, learners at all levels will cover the same principles but at increasing levels of theoretical complexity in a continuum stretching from practical doing to basic scientific explanation; from early education encounter (high school level) to extended, in-depth academic coverage at tertiary education level.