We asked our fellow member trainers how they deal with students' absences. Some 60 answers were received.

One thing is certain: unexpected absences are inevitable. The question is: how should we deal with them? The responses we received reveal a wide range of creative approaches. Alongside these, our teachers have generously shared their best practices.

The following questions were asked:

• (1) What is the overall educational culture in your country with regard to training absences?
• (2) What is your/your institution's approach to dealing with student absences?
• (3a) Do you have a policy on how to deal with absences?
• (3b) Is this policy documented in writing?
• (3c) If yes, is this policy available to students?
• (4) How satisfied are you with the way this topic is dealt with at your NLP school?
• (5) How well do the other FMTs comply with the guidelines?
• (6) Is headquarters of the IANLP doing a good job?

 The complete report is available to our accredited Fellow Member Trainers only via access to internal forum. (You will need your credentials to log into members forum.)

Some findings

• Some trainers tolerate up to 20% absenteeism and still award a certificate. This is an important insight. IANLP curricula require 100% fulfillment of the time requirement (18 days / 130 hours). If 20% absence is allowed, then these figures must be increased accordingly.
• The educational culture of some countries naturally allows for an accepted absence rate of up to 20%.  This, of course, makes it more difficult for FMTs to enforce a 100% attendance requirement.
• Most FMTs are satisfied with the way they deal with absences.
• Most FMTs think the IANLP is doing a good job. Some 76%+ say the IANP is doing a good job in guarding the fulfillment of the guidelines. But... some 7.3% say we could do better! We see this as a call to strengthen our commitment to fairness within the network.

For more than 50 Years

Neuro-Linguistic Programming celebrated its 50th Anniversary in September 2025. To mark the occasion, both creators of NLP, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, agreed to appear at a special event, to share their own perspectives of their collaboration which built the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

The event called NLP 50 was organised by The NLP Academy and Pure NLP, and we are delighted to make the videos available.