"The advice we've received is that a structured credit should be basically related to NZQA content, so unless you can demonstrate that link, then really it's very dubious claiming a structured point," he said.

Referring to the credits awarded at professional body conferences and roadshows McMillan said, "It's not so much the quality, it's whether the content is aligned with NZQA standards."

"I think ultimately it's going to be for the associations to defend how they deem those to be structured. And likewise, if members are claiming them as structured points, there's a vulnerability from that angle as well."

McMillan said TNP was working with former ETITO commercial services consultant Leonie Wallwork to devise educational courses that would be aligned to NZQA content.

"My pragmatic view is that probably nobody's going to scrutinise those in the next 12 months, but in the long term we think we'd far rather have structured credits on a very firm foundation."

McMillan said professional associations may have received advice that their approach to offering credits is fine, "but the advice we've been given is that to simply follow a similar process would be a vulnerability and that's not what we want to happen to our members. We'd like a bit more of a robust process around that."

He said TNP hoped to have an NZQA-approved education project completed by the end of the year and be able to offer members courses clearly designated as structured and unstructured.