And last Friday a federal judge issued a permanent injunction blocking an IRS plan to regulate and enforce some minimum competency and continuing education requirements on hundreds of thousands of currently unregulated paid tax preparers.
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As Jayson Boyers argues over at the Huffington Post, competency-based education omits the social and relationship-based aspects of a college education, which often yield as much career benefit as classroom knowledge to those just entering the workforce.
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In addition to the argument about the competency-based education approach presenting a poor simulacrum of the traditional higher education experience, there is also the nagging question as to whether the students who pursue this type of accreditation have truly gained the same level of subject area knowledge and expertise as those who have slogged through four years of course work.
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All exempt from the continuing education and competency exam requirements because they were in industries that were self-regulated.
FORBES: Attorney Who Bested IRS In Tax Preparer Regulation Case Speaks Out
Under the new rules, attorneys, CPAs and enrolled agents (EAs) are exempt from the competency testing and continuing education requirements.
New requirements take effect on January 1, 2011, and include mandatory preparer tax identification numbers, continuing education, competency testing, ethical standards and electronic filing.
Continuing education and competency testing are expected to follow next year.
Under the rules, as written, an attorney like my husband would be exempt from the competency exam and continuing education requirements simply by virtue of his profession.
FORBES: Attorney Who Bested IRS In Tax Preparer Regulation Case Speaks Out
Shulman felt that requiring tax preparers to register with the IRS, pass a competency test and take continuing education classes would protect taxpayers from potentially fraudulent preparers.
The requirements include a competency exam and mandatory continuing education.
FORBES: IRS Targets 100,000 Tax Professionals For Noncompliance
In accordance with this order, tax return preparers covered by this program are not currently required to register with the IRS, to complete competency testing or secure continuing education.
FORBES: IRS Issues Statement In Response To Court Ruling Regarding Tax Preparers
Attorneys and CPAs are exempt both from the competency exam and the mandatory continuing education requirements on the grounds that their respective professions already have standards that exceed those of the IRS. As a tax attorney, I agree that this makes a little bit of sense.
FORBES: IRS Targets 100,000 Tax Professionals For Noncompliance
My single best idea for reforming K-12 education is to transform the system into a competency-based system powered by digital learning.
Under his watch, the IRS did move towards a new system which required registration (along with a fee), a competency exam and annual requirements to take at least 15 continuing education credits.
The UNITWIN G-PhEd Network will act as a new mechanism for the work of the FIP Pharmacy Education Taskforce, which has been dedicated to developing tools and resources to help tackle challenges of academic capacity, quality assurance of educational systems and workforce competency in both high-resource and low-resource pharmacy education institutions.
During a bilateral meeting with the Rector and President of the University, Irina Bokova expressed deep appreciation for the translation and launch of UNESCO's flagship Information and Communication Technology Competency Framework for Teachers by the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education in December 2011.
These days Brazil ranks among the countries with the worst English language competency in the world, according to a report released last week by Education First (EF), a worldwide educational company.
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Just over a year ago, I wrote a column about badges, those digital displays of hyper-focused competency that migrated from foursquare, gaming, and e-commerce to education.
The big purpose of education is to prepare good citizens by providing them with a foundational competency in our cultural way of structuring reality, a process that has immediate impact on the social systems in which they will inevitably participate.
The ICT Competency Framework for Teachers aims at helping countries to develop comprehensive national teacher ICT competency policies and standards, and should be seen as an important component of an overall ICT in Education Master Plan.
Unlike regular degree programs, which provide a macro education on a general topic (say, Computer Science), badges certify micro-based competency in a very specific skill (say, JavaScript).
FORBES: Why Get a Pricey Diploma When a Bleepin' Badge Will Do?
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