Kaplan opens enrolments for ‘intensive’ adviser education option

Ahead of the 31 December deadline for financial advisers to meet the Financial Adviser Standards education requirements, if not claiming the 10-year experience exemption, Kaplan Professional has opened enrolments for a six-week ‘intensive’ study option.

The additional educational offering is set to commence from 11 August and was introduced to meet heightened enrolment demand from both licensees and individual advisers.

Despite its heavily condensed format and six-week curriculum, the intensive option will still offer advisers working towards the experience pathway deadline all eight core subjects of Kaplan’s Graduate Diploma of Financial Planning.

Kaplan Professional indicated that the intensive course is designed for advisers looking to quicken their progress, manage work and study at the same time or because it suits their individual circumstances, warning that its shortened timeframe still requires the same level of workload and assessments as a conventional 12-week study period.

“We estimate that we have educated about 90 per cent of the market throughout the education uplift and we have had record enrolments in the first three intakes of this year – close to 6,000 subject enrolments,” Kaplan Professional CEO, Brian Knight, said.

“Based on our student data, there are just over 1,500 advisers currently studying with us who still need to meet the education deadline – this ranges from between one and eight subjects – there are probably close to 500 who may be at real risk if we do not provide additional options.

“We are in regular contact with licensees, with dedicated teams working overtime to provide progression reports to keep them up to date with live data – helping identify adviser study gaps in meeting the education standard.”

The intensive option will also run concurrently alongside the last two regular course intakes for the year, Study Period 4 from 30 June and Study Period 5 from 25 August.

“Another major focus for us has been working with licensees to ensure they have a complete understanding of their responsibilities to ensure their advisers’ education details are correctly registered on the FAR,” Knight said.

“We feel it is our duty as an educator to ensure we can get as many advisers as possible across the line before the end of the year … we will continue to re-assess progression statistics and if there is continued demand from both licensees and advisers, we will explore the option to add more intensives.”