The National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) and I-CAR continue their collaboration and commitment to collision repair knowledge and skill excellence. The goal of this joint effort is to align education, training and certification requirements between the organizations in an effort to make it easier for career technical schools to both utilize I-CAR curriculum programming and achieve ASE-accreditation program requirements.
On the education side, I-CAR’s Professional Development Program – Education Edition (PDP-EE) ProLevel 1 curriculum is used by the majority of collision repair training programs at the high school and community college levels, and as such this helps them become ASE accredited.
“I-CAR does not accredit these training programs,” said John Van Alstyne, CEO and president of I-CAR. “We provide the appropriate curriculum programming that helps schools educate students, which aligns with ASE accreditation requirements and collision repair industry educational standards.”
To support this effort, I-CAR offers the Official I-CAR CTE Curriculum Crosswalk to the ASE Education Foundation Task Lists, which is available online from both organizations.
The two organizations also coordinate programming for professional technicians. ASE recognizes I-CAR ProLevel 2, ProLevel 3 or Platinum status to satisfy the requirements for ASE collision repair and refinish work experience, whereas I-CAR grants two course credits toward Platinum annual training requirements for technicians who hold an ASE Collision Repair certification. This collaboration eliminates redundancies for technicians seeking to earn designations from both I-CAR and ASE, reducing total training time and the time required to earn those designations.
“The combination of I-CAR training, ASE Education Foundation program accreditation and ASE certification bring our industry full circle for finding and creating world-class collision repair and refinishing technicians,” said Tim Zilke, president and CEO of ASE. “It is great to see the I-CAR and ASE programs working together synergistically.”
