By Mike Pickford
Anaheim, California — August 11, 2016 — For the best part of the past two years, a pair of collision repair trainer associations has been locked in negotiations in an attempt to unify industry training, testing and certification. On Wednesday (August 10), the heads of both I-CAR and ASE announced an agreement had been reached to credit each other’s students.
Officially unveiled at the 2016 NACE/CARS Conference and Expo in Anaheim, the deal will go some way towards aligning I-CAR’s training methods and curriculum with ASE’s testing and certification program. The move is likely to benefit thousands of technicians and apprentices across the continent.
Speaking during the morning announcement at the Collision Industry Conference session, I-CAR President and CEO John Van Alstyne said he was pleased to finally see the two sides come to terms, noting it would bring several benefits to the business as a whole.
“These are really good steps towards identifying that there’s synergies in the programs,” said Van Alstyne, according to a report in Repairer Driven News. “We believe that this is going to save time, save money and reduce redundancy for the industry.”
ASE will now recognize I-CAR ProLevel 2 or 3 Platinum technicians as having satisfied the requirements for its collision repair and work experience demand. I-CAR will also automatically grant two credit hours towards Platinum annual training requirements for technicians with ASE Collision Repair certification.
There was further news for the industry though as the two organizations revealed they would be working together to improve the system behind the curriculum and accreditation of career technical school collision repair programs. Training standards for these programs are maintained through the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF), which sanctions those that meet organizational standards.
Both I-CAR and ASE’s National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation concluded that I-CAR’S Professional Development Program Education Edition (PDP-EE) met NATEF’s standards, opening the door for certain schools to obtain NATEF accreditation while using PDP-EE, something Van Alstyn described as “a pretty big deal.”
This agreement will be documented in the official ‘I-CAR CTE Curriculum Crosswalk to the NATEF Collision Repair and Refinishing Standards task list,’ to be presented by NATEF and I-CAR.
“With this collaboration between I-CAR and NATEF, schools that are using, or wish to use, the PDP-EE curriculum will find it easier to match the NATEF task list,” I-CAR wrote on Wednesday. “This will benefit collision repair and refinish programs, instructors and students. It will improve these programs and encourage them to use the I-CAR PDP-EE ProLevel 1 curriculum and become NATEF accredited.
As a result, all those graduating from NATEF-accredited schools will receive both I-CAR Platinum recognition and an ASE Collision Repair and Refinishing Certification.
According to a report in Repairer Driven News, ASE President and CEO Tim Zilke, also on hand during the announcement, noted this agreement would serve to better the industry as a result of having a more refined, highly-skilled work force.
“The combination of I-CAR training, NATEF program accreditation and ASE certification bring our industry circle for finding and creating world-class collision repair and refinishing technicians,” Zilke said.
To further promote the new partnership, I-CAR will be offering training classes at the ASE Industry Education Alliance Instructor Training Conference on an annual basis, and will present the first I-CAR Collision Repair/Refinishing Technician of the Year Award at the ASE fall board meeting later this year.
