In 2005, the Illinois Real Estate License Act was amended to include a required 6 hour Broker Management CE course for all licensed brokers. All brokers licensed after April 30, 2006 are required to complete the course within 180 days of initial licensing. All other brokers are required to complete the course prior to the April 30, 2008 license renewal. A total of 18 hours of continuing education, including this course are now required every two years for Illinois brokers. If a broker license does not wish to complete the required education, he may elect to step down to a salesperson's license at the time of renewal.
The amendment was proposed, in part, to address the number and types of complaints received by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation indicating a lack of knowledge or misunderstanding of a managing broker's responsibility under the Illinois Real Estate License Act.
In order to promote the offering of uniform and consistent course content, the IDFPR contracted with an outside vendor to develop the course. The six hour class must be presented in a physical classroom setting by trained instructors whom have been trained in course presentation and have passed the course exam.
The six hour course includes:
- Broker Licensing and Responsibilities
- Agency Issues and Agreements
- Office Management and Escrow
- Risk Reduction
- Disciplinary Actions
According to the Illinois Real Estate Educational Foundation, the course is intended to provide the knowledge and the tools necessary to be an effective real estate broker in Illinois.
The Illinois Academy of Real Estate has contracted with several approved instructors and plans on scheduling the course as soon as it becomes available. We are also interested in talking to other approved instructors.
As a real estate educator, I often ask myself, "what is the goal of real estate education?", a challenging question, especially when I work with state mandated content. I have viewed a few other blogs that address that same question. A couple of good ones are Pre-License Education and the value to the agent and Quality of Pre-License Education. While those blogs address pre-license, rather than continuing education, the issue is the same when working with state mandated content.
The answer is not simple, and I am sure that not all will agree with my analysis. I agree that the real estate industry needs to "raise the bar" as far as professionalism is concerned, but is "forced" education the answer. Education is important, but how much, what type, and to what extent.
Those who are serious about the profession already value the importance of education and would seek out education simply for the sake of improving themselves and the profession, ie GRI, CRS, CRB, e-PRO, CCIM, ABR, etc whom probably view most state mandated education as a simplistic joke, and yet the State does have a mandate to protect the public.
Perhaps there is a method, or could be a method to the madness of state regulatory agencies. Require enough education for licensing to protect the public with the ability to revoke the license if harm is done. That is the idea of a license, a way to enforce legal conduct within a profession.
I find the definition of "educate" to be very interesting - to train by formal instruction and supervised practice practice, especially in a skill, trade or profession. Perhaps the real estate profession should be an apprenticeship, or wait a minute, isn't that already the idea. The broker is responsible for the training and supervision of those he takes under his wing. Maybe more education and supervision should take place after licensing.
Perhaps more diligent broker supervision and enforcement of the law needs to be as important or more important as state mandated content in raising the level of professionalism in the real estate business.
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