Mickie Rops Consulting

I was asked today if an organization could require candidates for their certification program to purchase their training materials.  This is becoming a popular question.   As always, there's not a clear-cut answer.

If your organization has or is trying to create a professional certification program for the field, then it is not desirable to require purchase of training materials your organization has created.  Doing so would not be in compliance with the certification industry standards promulgated by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies or the American National Standards Institute for their accreditation programs for certifying bodies.   The problem is not with offering the training, it's with REQUIRING it.

If, on the other hand, your organization's program is a curriculum-based certificate program, then the training is an integral component of the program so it can and should be required. 

There's a final IF.  If your program is really a blend between certification and curriculum-based certificate, then the answer gets even greyer.  The answer then depends upon how the program really functions in the market as to whether or not it's a good idea to require study materials.  Generally, it's not.

Click here to learn more about the distinctions between professional certification and curriculum-based certificates.