Across health care professions in Canada, regulators are increasingly exploring how to create pathways to licensure that recognize a broader range of experience. This includes individuals who have developed skills through international education, related professions or years of hands-on work, but who have not followed traditional education routes in Canada. Creating fair, consistent ways to assess their competence and support entry to practice is becoming an important part of strengthening the workforce while maintaining public protection.
In dental technology, this work is already underway as the Canadian Alliance of Dental Technology Regulators (CADTR), leads a national approach to how competence is assessed and recognized.
CADTR is the national federation of dental technology regulators in Canada, bringing together provincial regulators that license more than 1,800 registrants across the country. These regulators work together at a national level on matters that support the regulatory mandate of each provincial jurisdiction to protect the public interest.
Historically, each regulator administered its own credential assessment and licensure exam. This resulted in inconsistent registration practices across the country and, at times, applicants seeking entry through jurisdictions with fewer requirements.
To address these challenges, CADTR launched the Access to Dental Technology (ADT) project, a two-phase regulatory modernization initiative funded by the Government of Canada through Employment and Social Development Canada’s Foreign Credential Recognition Program.
Through the ADT project, the alliance is strengthening how competence is defined, assessed and recognized across jurisdictions, supporting consistent standards for safe and competent practice. licensing law.
ADT I: Building the foundation
The initiative’s first phase, ADT I, established a formal and consistent pathway to meet the minimum entry-to-practice requirements for licensure. It introduced the National Essential Competencies for Dental Technology Practice in Canada (NEC) and the National Essential Entry-to-Practise Competencies (NEETPC), shared benchmarks that now form the basis for licensure across the country.
It approved Canadian dental technology educational programs and created substantial equivalence pathways for applicants who had not graduated from one of those programs. The initiative also introduced standard, psychometrically valid and defensible licensure examinations, a single point of entry for pre-registration requirements, and accessible pre-arrival tools to help internationally educated professionals begin preparing before arriving in Canada.
For the first time, this work created a consistent national framework for the profession.
ADT II: Bridging experience to licensure
Despite the success of ADT I, there was a group that its framework still could not reach.
Due to the nature of dental laboratory work, many individuals develop dental technology skills over time through experiential learning. Dental laboratory associates often begin by observing workflows, supporting production and taking on progressively more complex tasks. Through this process, they build competencies aligned with dental technology practice.
These individuals have developed relevant competencies but have not had a clear pathway for those competencies to be formally assessed and recognized within existing approaches.
ADT II was initiated to address this gap by expanding how competence is recognized through a new pathway to licensure, the Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) pathway.
As the alliance explains, traditional credential assessment approaches primarily compare an applicant’s formal international education to approved Canadian programs. CADTR’s PLAR model, currently in a pilot phase, expands on this by recognizing that equivalent competencies may also be gained through experiential learning. It offers a flexible and accessible pathway by evaluating how an individual’s prior learning and practical experience align with established national benchmarks, while maintaining consistent standards for public protection.
Early response to the PLAR pilot signals clear demand for this new pathway into the profession. “We’ve seen a strong response to the PLAR pilot, achieving 50% of our target for expressions of interest. It’s not limited to today’s newcomers which tells us that there’s merit in this pathway for dental lab associates who were not able to enter the profession in the past,” the alliance said.
For many, this pathway offers a way to move toward becoming a licensed professional. As the alliance notes, applicants are proceeding through the PLAR pilot to gain formal recognition for the skills they have developed, opening the door to new opportunities for career advancement within the profession. They have approached the process with care, reflecting the significance of this opportunity.
Challenges and lessons
While early response to the PLAR pilot highlights the need and demand for this new pathway, it also reflects the work required to bring it to life.
As the alliance noted, the work has come with challenges: “Dental technology is a relatively small profession in terms of registrants, so securing sufficient participation from subject matter experts within the profession, along with recruiting enough candidates for the pilot, has been a challenge. The ADT project has successfully achieved both. However, continued engagement and support from the profession are essential to sustain and build on this progress.”
Looking back on the project to date, the alliance points to the importance of early and ongoing engagement with members of the profession, educational programs and other system partners. Clear communication and education about the purpose and scope of the initiative are essential to building understanding and support.
A key part of that communication has been reinforcing what the PLAR model is, and what it is not. The alliance emphasizes that it is not intended to replace formal education. Instead, it provides an alternate pathway for individuals who have developed the required competencies through experiential or other forms of learning, while maintaining established standards for public protection.
Looking ahead
The ADT project is, at its core, about inclusion, removing barriers and giving qualified candidates a fair chance to be recognized for what they know and what they can do.
It is a model that other regulators, in dental technology and beyond, are watching closely.
The work of ADT continues, and participation from the profession remains essential. With a national foundation now in place, the pathway to recognition is more accessible than it has been before. More information is available on CADTR’s website. •
