Update:  Come to CONnect Live on September 12 and October 31 where we'll go over these changes and answer any questions you may have.  I have corrected the hours of CON 1100/V below from previous blogs.

CON 1210 will now be embedded within CON 1200V rather than being a stand-alone certification course as stated in previous blogs and even in our April 18 CONnect Live webinar.   In effect, this does not change the existing content of CON 1200V and our 4 current certification courses will still be the only contracting certification courses come October 1, 2024. I've updated the below blog accordingly.  CON 1210 is still also available for anyone to take at anytime.

Starting October 1, 2024 there will be changes to the layout of the training for the DoD Contracting Professional Certification.  These changes are in direct response to your feedback and are mainly structural adjustments with little impact on course objectives, content, and training hours. 

Currently CON 1100V, 1200V, 1300V, and 1400V are each virtual instructor led training (VILT) courses taught anywhere between 40-60 hours over 19 days depending on the course.  Since deployment of the courses, student evaluations and faculty feedback indicated that supervisors were unclear on how to balance their employee’s work/class schedule.  Many students either maintained the full workload or did not have any workload at all during training.  This was never the intention for students of our 19-day courses.  In addition, contracting senior leaders expressed a need for an in-person training class for the Contracting Functional Area. 

How is DAU responding?

We restructured all four courses for delivery over a shorter timeframe without any major impacts to course objectives and content and successfully piloted them with students.  

• All courses will now be taught in consecutive days, thereby eliminating the need for students to split their time between training and office work. That’s right, students will be fully immersed in training full time while in a class, whether it is in-person or VILT, and supervisors must clear their employees’ work schedules while they are in training to eliminate any distractions with external work.

• We will be providing both in-person offerings of CON 1100 and VILT offerings of CON 1100V.  CON 1100/V will be the same no matter how you take it.  In-person training will only be available for CON 1100.  CON 1200V, 1300V, and 1400V will still only be offered via VILT.

The certification courses will be either 5, 8, or 9 days long as follows:

• CON 1100/V Contract Foundational Skills – 8 consecutive days.  DAU to Schedule 50% of offerings in-person.  DAU to Schedule 50% of offerings for VILT.  If there are in-person offerings where the class minimum number of students are not met, then DAU may convert that in-person offering into a VILT offering. 

• CON 1200V Contract Pre-Award – 9 consecutive days.  CON 1210 Contract Pre-Award: Industry Perspective will be embedded within CON 1200V.

• CON 1300V Contract Award – 8 consecutive days

• CON 1400V Contract Post-award – 5 consecutive days

Below is an overview of the certification courses that will be effective starting FY25.  Please note that some of the DAU Regions will be offering some of these shorter duration courses during the 4th quarter of 2024.

DAU continues to offer you learning opportunities that provide deeper dives into important contracting areas to give you the tools you need to successfully perform your job.  Always remember, DAU provides in depth training and support for the numerous contracting assignments and other acquisition areas through DoD credentials, DAU tools, DAU Media, DAU webinars, and Commercial learning opportunities.