new link between N.I.C.E. & Alphacrucis

Historic agreement between Alphacrucis and CEN’s National Institute for Christian Education (NICE)

In a bold step forward in the history of Christian Education in Australia, Christian Education National’s (CEN) Tertiary arm, the National Institute for Christian Education (NICE), have reached an in-principle agreement to work towards a third party agreement with Alphacrucis College. “It’s a vote for the common mission of Christian education”, according Alphacrucis Associate Dean of Education, Dr David Hastie, “it completes the box-set of Christian Teacher training: bringing the excellent NICE MEd and MEd (Leadership) into a continuum with the existing Alphacrucis pre-service teaching degrees and research MPhils and PhDs: from beginning teacher to leaders in Christian Education. “It also signals a new era of cooperation between different branches of the Protestant schooling movement, according to AC Dean of education, Professor Mark Hutchinson: “this better positions both organisations to further flourish nationally and internationally amongst various theological groups”.
David Gray, Director of the National Institute, says that “as we move into our 40th year of operation, the opportunity to work alongside an established college such as Alphacrucis will provide the National Institute with the strength, flexibility and support structure that is necessary in this day and age to continually pursue a reformational, ‘all of life’ Biblical perspective, one that will positively impact our teachers, students and tertiary faculty”.   
The arrangement would see National Institute degrees accredited through Alphacrucis as Australia’s largest self-accrediting Protestant higher education provider, but also a rich exchange of ideas, research and fellowship. This development and the innovative Alphacrucis Hub model, should indeed lead to interesting developments in the Australian Christian schooling sector. Exciting times, watch this space.