A View From the Board | Education as the Foundation of Opticianry

One of the things I have come to appreciate during my many years in the eye care profession is just how diverse the pathways into the profession of opticianry can be. 

Opticians come from college programs, apprenticeships, employer-based training, self-study, online programs…and, in some cases, just winging it…and often, for many of us, combinations of each. That diversity has produced countless talented and accomplished professionals. But it has also created one of the significant challenges facing opticianry: we do not yet have a consistent educational foundation shared across our profession.

What I Learned Along the Way

When I began as an optician at an early stage in my professional journey (late 1980s…where did the time go?), much of what I initially learned came from the opticians, mentors, and colleagues who came before me. I remain incredibly grateful for that experience. Some of the most valuable lessons of my career were learned standing beside experienced opticians who took the time to teach me their craft.

But I also learned something else.

Sometimes what I was taught was incomplete. Sometimes there was little explanation for why something was done a particular way. Occasionally, what I was taught was simply incorrect. The explanation was often some variation of “That’s how I learned it” or “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Tradition and experience are enormously valuable. But they cannot, by themselves, be the educational foundation of a healthcare profession.

“An amateur can be satisfied with knowing a fact; a professional must understand the reason why.”

— Adapted from Percy C. Buck

Why Evidence-Based Education Matters

Professional education must be grounded in evidence. It must be accurate, science-based, measurable, reproducible, and subject to continued evaluation as our knowledge and technology evolve. Anything less can potentially lead to confusion, a lack of legitimacy when dealing with other professions/professionals outside of ours, and a lack of consistency.

When we look at professions such as nursing, physician assistants, physical and occupational therapy, pharmacy, dental hygiene, veterinary technology, surgical technology, and optometry, their paths have certainly not been identical. Yet each has developed a recognized educational infrastructure that helps establish a common body of knowledge and expectations for those entering the profession.

Strong professional associations matter. Advocacy matters. Licensing and regulation matter. Public awareness matters.

But education provides the foundation of it all.

The Educational Standard Opticianry Needs

So how does this affect opticianry? In my personal view, the educational standard for an optician should ultimately be a comprehensive, accredited two-year associate degree in opticianry (I personally would someday love to see a four-year opticianry program become available). Excellent two-year accredited associate degree programs in opticianry already exist across the country, and their faculty and graduates demonstrate what comprehensive opticianry education can accomplish. There are simply too few opticianry programs geographically available today to make that pathway accessible to every person who wants to enter the profession.

Navigating the Pathways Into Opticianry

For someone who does not have access to a two-year formal degree program, due to geographic, financial, or other reasons, the current educational landscape in opticianry can be confusing. There are apprenticeship programs, online courses, certification review programs, textbooks, employer training programs, websites, videos, social-media content, and countless other resources.

Some of these resources are outstanding and represent tremendous and invaluable contributions to our profession. Others, though, can potentially be incomplete, outdated, inadequately assessed, or of questionable accuracy. For a new optician trying to build a professional education, it can be extraordinarily difficult to navigate this landscape.

The Role of Apprenticeship

We cannot ignore the long and proud tradition of apprenticeship in opticianry. Apprenticeship has produced generations of exceptional opticians and provides something that a textbook or computer screen never can: supervised experience applying knowledge to real patients, real eyewear, real problems, and real-world professional judgment. But there has often been a component that can be missing: the underlying theoretical and foundational knowledge of the WHY of what we do.

How do we ensure that every future optician, regardless of the pathway available to them, has access to rigorous, comprehensive, evidence-based education combined with meaningful practical experience? That is a challenge UOA and our profession as a whole must address.

How UOA Is Building a Framework for Opticianry Education

The work ahead is built on a long legacy of formal opticianry education, including the former National Federation of Opticianry Schools (NFOS), whose educators, now part of UOA, laid the groundwork for today’s effort to reimagine both formal and apprenticeship pathways. Building on that foundation, UOA is now working with educators, subject-matter experts, experienced opticians, industry partners, and volunteers nationwide to explore a modern, evidence-based framework for opticianry education.

Our work includes supporting and promoting currently accredited opticianry programs wherever possible, supporting the development of new programs where feasible, and examining how a robust, comprehensive, and evidence-based educational resource could complement apprenticeship where access to formal opticianry education is limited.

Such a framework must be more than a collection of information. It should define what an optician needs to know, understand, demonstrate, and apply. It should include meaningful assessment of knowledge and competency. And most importantly, its content should be based upon the best available evidence, not simply upon how any one of us happened to learn the profession.

A Common Foundation for Every Optician

Imagine what that could mean. Imagine an optician beginning an apprenticeship in Connecticut, another entering the profession in Florida, another studying at an accredited college in New York, and another training with an employer in a state without formal opticianry education.

Their pathways might be different. Their practical experiences might be different. But beneath those experiences could be a common educational foundation—a shared body of professional knowledge that defines what it means to be an educated and competent optician.

That common foundation would not erase the traditions of our profession. It would strengthen them.

It would give employers greater confidence in the people they hire. It would give educators and mentors clearer expectations for the people they teach. It would provide policymakers and other healthcare professions with a clearer understanding of our professional competencies. Most importantly, it would help ensure that patients receive care from opticians whose knowledge is grounded in evidence and whose skills have been meaningfully developed and assessed.

If we want opticianry to advance, we must continue advocating for our profession. We must strengthen our state and national organizations. We must increase public awareness and professional recognition.

But we must also strengthen the foundation underneath all of those efforts. Education is that foundation.

Creating a consistent, rigorous, and evidence-based educational backbone for opticianry will not happen overnight. It will require cooperation among educators, apprentices, experienced opticians, employers, state associations, credentialing organizations, industry partners, our colleagues from other professions, and many others.

Moving Forward Together

It may require several steps along this journey to get to where we need and want to go. And we will need the support, effort, and buy-in from our opticians…and, in some cases, patience and the grace to recognize that this process will not be instantaneous, nor will it be easy, nor will it be without bumps in the road along the way. I would personally ask for the support, effort, buy-in (and patience) from all of those in our industry.

I recognize that my own personal vision of opticianry in the future may never be fully realized exactly how I envision it…but that is less important than developing and collaborating on a shared vision of our profession as a collective, and I am certain that CAN be realized if we work together. Imagine the day when, regardless of where an optician was educated or trained, we can confidently say that every member of our profession begins with a common foundation of knowledge, understands not only what we do but why we do it, and possesses the skills necessary to apply that knowledge for the benefit of the patients we serve.

That is more than an educational goal. It is one of the essential steps toward unifying, advancing, and promoting this profession so that it can grow, thrive, and advance into the future.

Aarlan Aceto

Board President

United Opticians Association