FINCENT’s NATO Quality Assurance Reaccreditation Complete
FINCENT has received a NATO Quality Assurance (QA) reaccreditation for the next six years. Following a virtual on-site visit, a NATO Quality Assurance team of experts concluded in their evaluation report that FINCENT met all the required standards for reaccreditation. The certificate of Unconditional Accreditation by NATO Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (NATO HQ SACT) was signed on the 17th of June. FINCENT is now ready and fully certified as a world-class, individual education and training provider within the NATO system.
The Finnish Defence Forces International Centre was granted the NATO Quality Assurance Unconditional Accreditation Certificate for the first time in 2015. The certification provides proof to our cooperation partners that FINCENT as a whole and its courses meet NATO’s quality standards. FINCENT’s NATO QA reaccreditation for the next 6 years has been done this spring.
FINCENT’s NATO QA reaccreditation was affected, but not hindered by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On the contrary, we explored new possibilities and completed an important step in the process, the on-site visit, entirely virtually in May. Based on the virtual sessions and all the previously sent material, the NATO QA team of experts responsible for the reaccreditation summarised their findings in their evaluation report. The report was the final step in the reaccreditation process. The result was clear, and FINCENT was concluded to have clearly met all the three NATO standards: Leadership and management, Education and Training, and the Contribution to NATO.
The evaluation report commended several aspects of FINCENT’s QA work. FINCENT is regarded as a well-organized, professionally run Education and Training Facility with a leadership that is highly invested in the Quality Management System/QA process. The strong backing that FINCENT receives from both the Defence and Foreign Ministries was noted as well. Furthermore, FINCENT’s student-centric view of delivering training was highly commended. The support given to students for completing pre-course tasks prior to in-residence training was also identified as a strength.
The report highlighted FINCENT’s organisation, management and employment of a pool of experts as a particular strength. This is a pool of expert individuals from various of backgrounds on whose expertise FINCENT is able to rely on when delivering courses. This was identified as a best practice. The pool system has been highly successful for FINCENT and its success has been noted by our partners as well.
Further strengths included the good utilization of After Action Reports in course development and the level of comprehensiveness in which FINCENT’s Standard Operating Procedures are laid out. Areas of development noted by NATO QA personnel included the use of delayed feedback and a mechanism for implementing the exploitation of operational lessons learned. These points will be taken into account in FINCENT’s development during the next 6-year cycle.
Overall, the results of the report were highly successful and they commend the meticulous work that has been put into FINCENT’s QA during the past few years. Furthermore, the evaluation report helped clarify a few key lessons that were identified during these extraordinary and challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Courses may have to be redesigned according to NATO Systems Approach to Training (SAT) principles to meet the new circumstances. Blended solutions are expected to become commonplace when we settle down in “a new normal”. With its new NATO QA unconditional accreditation, FINCENT is more than ready to meet these new challenges together with its network of partners.
