ITEC is a body which validates qualifications and it is represented in many countries around the world. It is registered with the National Qualifications Framework in the UK and therefore attracts funding from the Learning and Skills Council. It offers courses in Beauty, Sport and Business, but also offers validation of courses in a category called Complementary.
This includes a QCF Level 3 Diploma in Reiki. Now Reiki is about the manipulation and transfer of non-detectable energy to unblock the bodies natural healing potential. It is utterly unevidenced, and is based purely on the beliefs of Reiki practitioners. It's as rational as the belief in unicorns and has the same level of evidentiary support.
So how is such a course taught and how can it possibly be assessed? Since there is no detectable energy present, nor any demonstrable way of showing any manipulation, practical assessment has to be based on observing students following ritual moves and saying ritual phrases. And that forms the continuous assessment part. But at the end, there's a 30 minute multiple choice examination. Out of 25 questions, just 7 refer to Reiki, and the pass mark is 60%. Get 15 questions right and you pass.
Most of the course is concerned with the mechanics of running a business, health and safety, hygeine, that sort of thing. But one component is actually of real scientific value: students are expected to complete a course in basic anatomy and physiology. And here's the irony. In all of the syllabus for anatomy and physiology, there is no mention of healing energy, Qi, chakras, channels, meridians, nor any of the other mystical concepts. If the student understands the principles of anatomy and physiology, they cannot at the same time accept the Reiki nonsense.
And yet students doing these courses are expecting to set up their own businesses performing Reiki on their customers. If they understand the science, they realise how dishonest that is. And if they were genuinely interested in care and healing, they could build on the anatomy and physiology and get a Diploma in Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology. Alas, the business opportunities based on real science are not as lucrative as peddling mystical nonsense to credulous customers.
So they go through the mill of quackademia, picking up nonsense qualifications whose only purpose is to reinforce delusional belief in the practitioners and their customers. It is shameful that bodies like ITEC should endorse qualifications in nonsense subjects, that they should drop their standards so far in order to attract the cash.
And it's dishonest pretending that these qualifications endorse real skills, real knowledge. They pretend that students understand what is meant by "energy integrity (protection, clearing, recharging, checking and energy interactions)" when the rational world knows it is nothing but twaddle. But that doesn't seem to matter to ITEC as long as they get the cash for rubber stamping these so-called diplomas.
