About Us
The College of Professional Development is a new institution but with deep roots. Our team has many decades of experience in vocational and higher education as well as in customised training.
Our mission
has two objectives.
We are facilitating new educational and employment opportunities for the local community at our home base in the West Midlands, focusing on employability and English language skills and on a specific initiative to make it easier for qualified nurses to serve in our regional hospitals and health trusts.
Our second objective is to serve the international community in providing cutting edge programmes and training through our prospective centres, in London and Dubai, intended to have a positive global impact.
Our vision is to have a transformative effect on the local West Midlands community within the first three years of our operation. Progressively, over the next three years, we also aim to become a first-choice provider of high-quality programmes and training to the international community.
Serving the local community
We have identified a number of obstacles to self-fulfilment among sections of the West Midlands community. These obstacles include inadequate competence or confidence in using English effectively as well as difficulties in accessing employment due to a lack of relevant skills. We aim to assist in overcoming these obstacles through providing English courses (ESOL) targeting practical competence in social settings and in the workplace, and by offering a range of employment-related short courses. These include courses covering functional skills in Maths, English and IT, general employability skills, customer services, hospitality, retail, logistics, adult social care, childcare, and security among others.
Aiding the recruitment of qualified nurses
Working with trusted agencies overseas, we will provide online or in-country face-to-face support for the preparation of any English language test still to be taken and for the mandatory Computer Based Test. We will identify shortage areas both by hospital and by nursing specialisms. This will enable our NHS institutions to sponsor qualified nurses as pre-registration candidates in the areas most needed. During the period of this sponsorship, we will provide preparation tuition for the OSCE test. This tuition is carefully designed to supplement the knowledge and skills gained during the candidates’ work in clinical settings and to significantly increase the number of first-time passes at OSCE, enabling the nurses to proceed to full registration.
Serving the international community
This area of our work will be conducted in our centres in London and Dubai. More information on these centres will be available shortly. There will be three types of provision: short (one or two-week) corporate training courses in areas where the UK or Dubai would be relevant settings; freestanding courses of up to six months leading to an academic qualification delivered in London; six-month face-to-face completion courses leading to an academic award delivered in London, of which the earlier parts of the course have been followed either online or face-to-face in Dubai. These programmes will be in high-demand areas enabling individuals and companies to adapt to a constantly changing technological and regulatory environment.
Our Home Base
We operate from state-of-the-art premises in the Science Park of Wolverhampton University which are fully equipped to deliver English courses, Employability courses, and OSCE tuition.
Our commitment to students and clients
The founders and all members of our team are involved in the ICOPD project out of a desire to provide life-enhancing opportunities to all who participate in our programmes. Paramount in our approach is to value the needs and aspirations of all those we serve. Care, support and confidence-building are prioritised in our engagement with each individual.
Our awarding partners
The awarding bodies we work with are selected based on high quality, up-to-date programme content, access to e-learning resources, appropriate assessment methods, and their own input into student support in line with our ethos.
Contact Us
We welcome enquiries about developments at ICOPD. Confirmation of start dates of our first courses,, of the location of our London and Dubai centres, and of relevant fees will be published on our website in the coming weeks.