In following up the accredation of the level 3 Diploma in Reiki offered by ITEC, some interesting facts have come to light.
Despite being told by ITEC that they weren't involved in the syllabus of the diploma course as they weren't experts, and then being passed on to Ofqual and QCDA, both of those bodies also denied responsibility for checking the content of the syllabus. I was referred by them instead to Skills for Health.
Their helpful head of Information Governance and Security, Mr John Sheehan patiently explained that in fact there were two diplomas from ITEC in Reiki. One of them, the international diploma contained the references to healing energy, energy sensing skills, and so on, whereas the UK diploma lacked any mention of them.
Indeed, the syllabus for the UK diploma course didn't have anything specific about Reiki at all except to include it generically in amongst many other "alternative medicine" approaches. The only sign of any assessment in Reiki was a subjective assessment by observation. We can only wonder why it was necessary to have such a completely different syllabus.
In addition, if you check the ITEC website, you can currently find three places in the UK offering the international diploma (energy sensing skills included) but none for the UK diploma.
But that's not all. On the ITEC site itself, the international version of the level 3 diploma says that it has "UK Accreditation: QCA 500/3251/3 Level 3" so it seems that somewhere along the line it has been accredited in the UK. Either that, or the ITEC site is wrongly claiming it to be accredited in the UK and ought to take down the claim.
We'll have to wait and see what Skills for Health has to say about that but it looks like the UK syllabus was kept vague so as not to mention that imaginary healing energy and the undetectable energy sensing skills.
We have now come full circle: from ITEC to Ofqual and QCDA to Skills for Health, and back to ITEC. And in all that, not the slightest hint that anyone with a passing familiarity with science, or indeed anyone at all, has taken a rational look at the syllabus. Time for another approach to ITEC.
Bob Lloyd has studied in four universities and has degrees in Biochemistry, Mathematics, and Computer Science. After a long career in publishing, teaching, and software engineering, he is now retired and lives in Andalucia in the South of Spain with his wife and rather ancient cat.
