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The British Institute for Learning & Development (BILD) is the awarding body for all TAP® qualifications, the UK's leading skills programme for learning-and-development professionals. In November 2013, the 25,000th TAP® Certificate was awarded, and to mark this milestone Nick Mitchell, who founded TAP® in 1998, was interviewed by TrainingSuccess.TV

Before responding to the question "What makes TAP® different from other train-the-trainer programs?", Mitchell first explained the background.  "In 1998, we introduced the Training Accreditation Programme, TAP®, as a stand-alone train-the-trainer course to meet the urgent training-delivery-skills needs of the 12,000-plus IT trainers in the UK.  Over seven years, more than 8,000 attended the programme, and TAP® expanded into a comprehensive programme that now offers more than twenty short-course modules covering all the skills needed by today's L&D professionals across all sectors and disciplines."

Asked why TAP® has attracted support from trainers in more than 1,400 organisations, including more than 2,000 across the NHS, Nick Mitchell used the acronym SMART to explain the key differences that had uniquely won TAP® a Queen's Award for Enterprise Innovation in 2005.  His presentation can be summarised as follows:

• skills-based - They aren’t theory-led like most train-the-trainer courses;
• modular - Delegates attend the course they need at the time, so learning is entirely relevant;
• assessable - Each course includes delegate assessment to TAP's best-practice profiles;
• role-relevant - The TAP® Framework offers role-based Certificates and Diplomas;
• timely - All TAP® modules are intensive short courses enabling skills transfer and rapid return to work, where the skills learned can be put into practice.

David Apparicio is Chair of the British Institute, which has aligned its membership requirements to the TAP® Qualifications Framework.  He commented, "The BILD is delighted to be integrally involved with the TAP® programme, which, over the past fifteen years, has done more to enhance the quality of learning than any other UK training qualifications. It is clearly of a different order to any other train-the-trainer course or programme, and through TAP® we are confident that L&D will become seen as a real profession."

Nick Mitchell, as CEO of The Training Foundation, which operates the TAP®  Programme, commented, "I'm confident that this alignment of TAP® with The BILD will prove to be a watershed event for L&D in the UK and globally. TAP® courses have now been delivered in some twenty countries around the world, and with the British Institute's support, I am confident that demand can only increase."