What is the diploma?
The diploma is a course of 'action learning', or learning by doing, which takes at least two years (but can take much longer). It's about putting the permaculture principles in place in your own life, and becoming proficient in the process of permaculture design.
I'm doing the supported (rather than independent) route, which means I have a designated tutor, who I'll meet for a tutorial approximately every six months. My tutor, Jo, will be someone to talk to about the process, and she'll give me guidance about the actual content of my designs too.
What does it involve?
You have to produce a portfolio of ten designs. These are projects where you have used a process of permaculture design, and can demonstrate how you have done it. People often assume that they have to be land based, so a design for a garden or a farm, but actually they can be for anything, as long as you can demonstrate how you have used permaculture design processes.
The diploma isn't a taught course, so you have to make a plan of how you will navigate your way through it. This is usually known as an action learning pathway.
Action learning pathway
The concept of action learning is often talked about in permaculture circles, and elsewhere (you can find out more in The Reflective Practitioner, by Donald A. Schon). It's a process of learning by doing - a cycle of planning, doing, observing and reflecting, then going back to planning and repeating the whole cycle again.
The action learning pathway is a plan for how you will get through your diploma.I'm going to write a whole separate post about mine, but briefly it contains a list of potential designs, a timetable for what I intend to do and when, a list of skills I have and skills I need (and how I will get them), and a list of events and places to visit.
My designs
Each person's diploma is personal, and there are no particular type of designs that you must include, but it's sometimes considered wise to start with your own home or life and gradually move out to designing bigger and more community-based things.
My planned designs are a bit of a hotchpotch mix. Turning our home into a palace (metaphorically, of course). A local oral history project about people who make their own clothes. Turning our tiny city garden into a food growing empire. Those kinds of things.
I'll write about each of these in turn too.
How is it assessed?
There's no set exam, because everyone's diploma is different. After you've produced five designs you have an interim portfolio assessment, where a more experienced person looks through your designs and advises you if they're ready for submission, and what you might need to add to the other five designs to make a well rounded portfolio.
Once all ten designs are done, you send them to an assessor (someone who's been through tutor training and assessment processes themselves, and who has agreed in advance to assess your portfolio). Once they've agreed everything is in order, you present your designs to a group of other diploma holders (usually at the national convergence, or another event), and then you're awarded your diploma!
What about fees?
I like the fees structure of the diploma. With other courses I've done, there's one set fee and you never know how much goes on which aspect of the course, but with the diploma it's all broken down.
Tutor and assessor time is costed at a realistic rate, and you pay a contribution towards the development of the diploma network too so others can benefit. It's all put together and paid directly to the Permaculture Association (mine is a monthly direct debit, but you can choose the amount and how long you pay it over), and then the right amount is passed on to tutors and assessors when it's due.
I like the transparency, and also the commitment to flexible payment methods, making it available to as many people as possible.
For more information...
The new diploma guidebook is available on the Permaculture Association website, along with details of fees and tutors.
What next?
I've just had my induction, so I'm on my own now until my next tutorial in November. This is where my commitment to self-directed learning is under the spotlight, and I find out whether I really am capable of motivating myself over long periods of time. Watch this space...