NAATI Revalidation

I was first aware of the revalidation in 2011, just before my accreditation expired in October. Then I received a letter from NAATI, saying that they were extending the validity of my accreditation for another year. However, I would need to be prepared for revalidation which would become effective in July 2012.

That letterworried me – just like I felt when I applied for an overseas qualificationassessment in 2009. Going throughcriteria for revalidation, although the points required seemed to be possiblefor me to achieve, I wasn’t so sure how much it would cost me to attendsufficient training in order to gain enough CPD points.

I had to come up with a plan right away. I knew I would be traveling out of Thailand more often given that I was no longer in a 9 to 5 job. Attending training in the countries that I was going to wouldn’t be a problem – not exactly – except that, generally, it cost around $150 or more to attend a training session in any topic.

So I searchedfor free public seminars offered by any university. At the time, Chulalongkorn University where Igot my master degree in translation was running a public lecture in law. Lucky me. I attended quite a few sessions, all of which were very useful. Apart from gaining CPD points forrevalidation, I also learned about some legal issues that were relevant to myjob. I specialise in legal translation.

I am interested in various subjects and this reflected in training I went to such as Thai massage workshop and spa manager training. I know these two training were not really related to translation but the knowledge gained from these training sessions were ‘world knowledge’. I now have better understanding in alternative treatment for illness - I learned about relation between muscle and health and I know how to heal myself, using essential oil and water.

The section of revalidation criteria that gave me a headache was the ethical training section. I tried to find a course in ethics in translation in Thailand and none was offered or if it was offered, it would be small part of a subject instead of being taught as one of the core subjects. I was running out of time. I needed to gain points in this section by end of October 2012, the expiry of my accreditation. Eventually, I decided to take online course titled ‘Behaving Ethically’ run by NAATI.

The course was very interesting. I didn’t expect that the course would include Socrates and other philosopher who came up with the questions ‘what ought one to do?’. The part that got my full attention was case study. This is because in translation industry in Thailand heavily focuses on literature translation whereas translation industry in Australia is to serve the need in business and immigration purposes (this is my view). Case studies discussed in most translation meetings in Thailand are always about deviation in translation, tone mismatch, autonomy in translation etc. Years ago, I wrote a letter to a director of TIAT, asking if they could hold a session that focused on business / document translation. None has ever been held until now.

There are many points in the ‘Behaving Ethically’ course that I have already been aware of, for example, confidentiality and conflict of interest,because I was in charge of compliance in my previous job. However, these points are not adhered to by many translators in Thailand. It’s common here for a translator to split work among friends in order to meet deadline. Some translators even certified translation done by other translators – which was very risky. Even if those translators do not have accreditation or registration (for a relevant authority to seize/suspend/revoke), they expose themselves to a lawsuit if their translation causes their client to lose a court case.

Well, I passed the course. I gained sufficient points for revalidation. I felt relieved. My accreditation in English-Thai translation is valid until September 2015.

The main point I want to talk about here is how revalidation might affect the number of translators. I recalled that in 2009 when I was just accredited, I searched for NAATI translators in Thailand and in Australia because I needed someone to do some work for my customer as I was tied up with other projects. There were three in Thailand and there were over 30 EN-TH and TH-EN translators in Australia.

Last night(26 Jan 13), I did a search again on www.naati.com.au. Surprisingly, there were 18 EN-TH and TH-EN translators in Australia. The number reduced by half. In Thailand, I am now the only NAATI-accredited translator in EN-TH and TH-EN language pairs on NAATI listing. 

Could it be that the revalidation was too difficult to achieve for some translators?

This question scares me. I am afraid I might be one of the translators who may be discouraged due to the number of training to gain CPD points (30 in ethics, 30 in language maintenance, 30 in skill development and 30 in any other topics) and the amount of work (30k words translation or 40 interpretation assignments / 3 years) required for revalidation.

On the positive side, revalidation is a good way to ensure translators keep improving themselves which will benefit customers in terms of better translation quality. I absolutely agree with this system.

To talk about translation, please send an email to natchaon@yahoo.com. 

NatchaonChucherdsak, NAATI No. 67061 Australia