Council on the Continuing Education Unit

Originally formed as a National Task Force on continuing education commissioned by the Bureau of Education (now the Department of Education) in 1968, the Council on the Continuing Education Unit (CCEU) gathered academic, business and education experts from around the country to define and promote the use of a single consistent unit of measurement for continuing education. Participants included representatives from health care, engineering, accounting, academia and many other professions. The result was the Continuing Education Unit, or CEU, defined as "ten contact hours of participation in an organized continuing education experience under responsible, qualified direction and instruction." The purpose of the CEU was to enable tracking and record-keeping of non-credit education undertaken by adult students. The CCEU formulated and disseminated guidelines on the use of the CEU and sponsored several conferences. The Council exists today (April 2006) as the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET).