Establishing Standards for Ayurvedic Education in the USA
In the past few years, growing demand for ayurvedic education has stimulated the establishment of more than 50 ayurvedic training programs in the USA. With no unifying educational standards for content or scope of practice, there is a complete lack of clarity on what new graduates of ayurveda can and cannot do.
Several groups in the USA and in the growing global ayurveda community have attempted to address the need for standardization of ayurvedic education as a necessary step for credentialing, legalizing, and validating the practice of ayurveda. However, none have yet disseminated definitive standards that the community of educators and active practitioners have approved.
In November 2011, The Council for Ayurvedic Credentialing (CAC) formed with the goal of setting tangible standards for education, scope of practice and competence, with the perspective of client safety in mind.
The CAC is a completely independent entity, has no affiliations to any ayurvedic group or organization, and is composed of ayurvedic educators and practitioners, vaidyas (ayurvedic physicians), and medical doctors (MDs), who are in the field of teaching as well as practicing ayurveda in various parts of United States.
Active 2012 Council members are:
Bhaswati Bhattacharya, MPH, MD, HHC, AWHC
Anupama KizhakkeVeettil, BAMS, YTTC, MAOM, LAc, PhD (C)
Patricia Layton, MA, CAS, PKT, E-RYT 500
Jayarajan Kodikannath, BAMS
Jayagopal Parla, BAMS, Doctor of Medicine in Ayurveda
Ashlesha Raut, BAMS, Doctor of Medicine in Ayurveda, NC, BCIM
The mission of this council is to create documents of ayurvedic education standards and well-defined scopes of practice for the various levels of education and educators of ayurveda in the USA. The task of tangible documents for the community of educators is being met with an upcoming release of curriculum guidelines, scope of practice guidelines and competency guidelines. AAPNA wholeheartedly supports the CAC in the interest of propagating quality ayurvedic education standards in the USA. While AAPNA could address and propose standards, it is AAPNA’s firm belief that such work is best done by an independent group of ayurvedic practitioners actively engaged in the field of education who have undergone thousands of hours in the milieu of education to develop their expertise.