Most Universities will have a quality code with a clear policy on accreditation or recognition of prior learning and the CSFS would expect the general principles for prior learning (APL, APEL and RPL) to be:
- Relevant;
- Sufficient;
- Current;
- Verifiable
While the CSFS considers these criteria to be important, it considers it is necessary to clarify its interpretation of “Relevant” in the particular context of a Society accredited programme in which the accreditation status is dependent upon each student covering the Society’s component standards with sufficient depth and breadth.
Different universities will have different rules determining whether any given student may transfer in to one of its programmes, and these rules will apply equally to Forensic Science programmes. However, conferment of accreditation by the CSFS requires that any student joining an accredited programme by APL/APEL/RPL must be able to demonstrate that, by graduation; they will have met or exceeded the same minimum coverage of the component standards as students who have completed the whole programme at that university. In practice, this means that students can easily transfer in to CSFS accredited programmes from other CSFS accredited programmes. However, irrespective of accreditation status, it will therefore be necessary for the university to conduct a detailed mapping of coverage of component standards for each student* wishing to transfer, since the distribution of material across the years of study differs between accredited programmes.
If there is any uncertainty about whether a transferring student meets the Society’s requirements, please contact accreditation@csofs.org.
*Universities may accept students on to their programmes who have small gaps in their studies. In these circumstances it must be clear to the CSFS that additional studies have been put in place for each student to ensure that, by the time of graduation, they have indeed studied on a programme that meets all the component standards on which the accreditation is founded.
return to useful information page