I first came across SEE TEFL in Chiang Mai, Thailand as they were one of the schools that a commenter said seemed to be responding positively to my complaints about how the IATEFL TEFL logo and name were being used. They’ve been similarly responsive to my recent questions about their accreditation and how they explain it, which is a pleasant surprise. I therefore am not writing to warn anyone off their courses but I would like to use what I’ve learnt from them as an illustration of a general point, being as how it is at the front of my mind.
The very top of the first page of SEE TEFL’s website says “Accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) Certified ISO 9001:2008 by Bureau Veritas”, and clicking on it or going to the Accreditation page explains “DSS International Language Services Co., Ltd. is the operating company of SEE TEFL Teacher Training. It obtained ISO 9001:2008 certification in 2009… SEE TEFL Teacher Training’s ISO certification was established through Bureau Veritas,.. ISO Certification by Bureau Veritas is accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service UKAS, the sole national accreditation body recognized by the UK government to assess organizations that provide certification services.”
As Bureau Veritas apparently supplied them with the logo that includes the UKAS name, we can assume that they do indeed have the right to use it in that way. I have been suggesting that they might need to change the wording of “Accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS)” heading though, as the actual relationship is that UKAS accredits Bureau Veritas (for some of its functions, including ISO certification) which accredits the management and admin of the operating company of SEE TEFL which might or might not have some positive impact on the actual teacher training standards of SEE TEFL (I don’t know enough about ISO and all the intervening organisations to know one way or the other).
As I said, I think SEE TEFL have been pretty honest about all this on their website (bar the confusing heading) and in emails to me and so this post isn’t supposed to be slagging them off. Instead I’m using it as it is my most recently discovered example of something that happens a lot – TEFL accreditation being many levels removed from the actual course you could end up taking. Other examples of this include at least half of the organisations that claim to be accredited by ODLQC seeming to be legally separate companies and/ or organisations that have bought the courses from someone who is actually directly accredited by that organisation.
One of the organisations in that multilevel accreditation is INTESOL, which also has this statement on its accreditation page ““INTESOL is proud to bring you qualifications that have been accredited as being at NQF Levels 4 & 5 by Ascentis (formerly OCNW), a National Awarding Body, which is recognised worldwide!… Ascentis is recognised by both Ofqual and the Quality Assurance Agency (for HE)”
whereas Cambridge says:
“The Cambridge CELTA has been accredited by Ofqual (the Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulation) at Level 5 on the National Qualifications Framework for England”
which at least leaves a layer of the millefeuille out of the process! (I’ll be doing a piece on whether Ofqual accreditation is worth much or not anyway sometime soon).
TEFL accreditation series Parts One and Two:
TEFLtastic 
I don’t see how it could actually be a bad thing, and in this case I think ISO is well enough known that most people have some idea that it is a general business thing rather than someone sitting in on the teacher training sessions. I don’t know that future employers would be too impressed by ISO on my certificate, though, and so there is again the danger that they read “UKAS accreditation” and take it the wrong way (depending on how the certificate is worded).
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