As of January 2010, we are moving towards an integrated process whereby members will be able to renew both membership and certification at the same time. Given that almost all of our members have different membership and certification renewal dates; this unification process -while benefits our members - will create challenges for our small office as it considerably adds to staff workload. In an effort to spread the workload evenly, we have decided to use the membership dates as renewal dates. We encourage all members to take advantage of the website payment renewal feature to further ease the above challenge by helping us move towards a streamlined process.

The Board has approved two recommendations by Accreditation Standards Committee to facilitate the above.

The first recommendation is an increase in certification fees and renewals. This increase was necessary to help us achieve full cost-recovery as well as hiring a full time staff dedicated to providing certification related services to members. Below is the rationale behind this recommendation:

It was the original intent that once public funding of the certification process ceased in 2000, that the process would be cost-recovery. Unfortunately no increase in fees was made at that time and in fact the certification fee for the first five years (2000-2005) was only $45 ($9 per year), which is an unrealistically low fee that does not achieve cost-recovery.
In 2005, when the concept of combining certification and membership fees (in 2010) was first undertaken, an annual fee of $16 per year was set for either application or renewal. In subsequent discussions it has become clear that the application process is much more time intensive than the renewal process, and that the $16 fee is far too low to achieve cost-recovery for either.
The Accreditation Standards Committee has researched certification fees for comparable professions and concluded that our fee was seen to be far less than the customary level for such a service. For example, the annual fee is $150 for the College of Early Childhood Educators.
As our certification process has expanded, it has been necessary to increase our staffing to continue to offer a level of service to our certified members. A Certification Coordinator was hired in 2005 on a part-time basis at first, which was changed to full-time as the demand grew. There are, of course, other expenses involved in the process such as legal fees, printing and mailing costs of certification.

The Committee recommended the following fee scales for the 2 membership categories:

MEMBERSHIP CATGORY #1 - our regular membership fee - for members who do not require or seek certification - as of January 1, 2010 remains at the present level of $86.00

MEMBERSHIP CATEGORY #2 - TESL Ontario Combined Membership/Certification Fee

Renewing members - this combined fee will be comprised of $86.00 membership fee plus $80 for the certification renewal, which brings the amount to $166 per year. The majority of our members will fall under this Membership Category #2.
New certification applicants -Applicants for certification must pay the annual membership fee of $86. In addition, there will be a one-time only, non-refundable administrative fee for the TESL Ontario Certification Application of $100, plus the annual Certification fee of $80. Therefore, a first-time certification applicant will pay a total of $266 ($86 membership fee + $100 administrative fee + $80 certification fee). Should an applicant be unsuccessful in meeting the requirements of certification, the $80 certification fee will be refunded, and if the applicant chooses not to retain a membership without certification, the $86 membership fee will be refunded. The one-time $100 administrative fee is non-refundable.

The second recommendation has to do with P.D. hour requirement. The Accreditation Standards Committee believes that as professionals, our members participate in many more professional development hours than required by TESL Ontario and as such is recommending the use of an honour system by which members are to indicate on the website form that they have accumulated 5 P.D. hours in a given year. Members will be asked to keep proof of their PD hours in their own files for five years, since verification may be required through random audit.

While we understand that this is a considerable increase in annual fees for certified members, we feel we are left with no choice if we are to continue to maintain the existing quality of service to our members.

For more information, please contact Sheila Nicholas TESL Ontario Chair at chair@teslontario.org