IPA records high pass rate for first advanced certificate programme

Certificates for the ten-month course, which began in March last year, were handed out at a recent ceremony by IPA President Moray MacLennan and Jim Marshall, chairman of both the IPA Media Futures Group and Starcom MediaVest.

The advanced certificate was developed as collaboration between the IPA's Media Futures and Professional Development Groups and was completed by candidates from the world of advertising across all disciplines.

Three out of four entrants came from media specialist agencies, while the remainder came from creative and digital agencies.

The course took the form of online learning and culminated in a written offline exam in January this year.

Of the 160 individuals who began the course, 126 passed the exam, and of those, 95 gained a pass with credit, while 18 recorded a pass with distinction.

Marshall said the objective for the programme was "to provide a bridge from trainee to experienced practitioner in the challenging field of communications planning and implementation" and to "provide depth and breadth of understanding about the increasingly complex media world, through practical and recent case studies".