Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy (VAAA)
Training Resources
The Contracting Professional School (CPS) provides the VA acquisition workforce with Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting (FAC-C) training. There are also opportunities to earn the 80 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs), which are required every two years, in order to maintain certification. The following resources are designed to help the acquisition staff polish their existing skills and plan long-term training:
In addition, CPS goes beyond merely providing the courses to refining them, as necessary. Through course surveys, Student Feedback allows the school to respond to the needs of the workforce.
CPS Trivia
The school offers a curriculum that provides over 1800 CLPs. At a rate of 40 CLPs per year, it would take approximately 46 years to complete all the offerings.
Training Shorts
Visit the Contracting Professional School Training Shorts page to view short videos about common contracting topics.
Course Competency Tool
The VAAA CPS Course Competency Tool is designed to help users identify what classes to take, based on alignment to the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI)/Defense Acquisition University (DAU) Technical Competencies and the VA 1102 Professional Competencies. You can choose a specific competency, in order to determine the classes CPS offers under that skillset.
NOTE: An updated version of this resource will remain on this site. Please open the tool from this location, so you have the most recent details. Please provide feedback to vaaacontractingprofessionalschool@va.gov.
Course Road Maps
The Course Road Maps provide suggestions for long-term professional development by outlining potential focus areas and continuous learning courses:
- Course Road Map 1 - Management Focus for 1102s
- Course Road Map 2 - Professional Focus for 1102s
To create your own path, request a blank road map, via vaaacontractingprofessionalschool@va.gov.
Student Feedback
This course was energizing; it promotes wholeness and connectivity with your work, your peers, and your leaders. FCL-VA-0132 - Master Optimism to Improve Performance
Enjoyed the real-world experience provided by the instructor and appreciated the engagement with students. FCL-VA-0134 - Master Virtual Communication
I thought the course offered a deeper dive into evaluating cost and pricing data, as well as gaining more knowledge in VA cost analysis, including cost realism. FCL-VA-0170 - Contract Pricing Determinations Workshop
I did not realize how important this training was until taking this course. Highly recommend. FCN 603 - Journeyman Contracting Officer, Emotional Intelligence
Everything about this course was relevant as a supervisor. I think that it should be assigned at the one-year mark along with the nuts and bolts course work. FCN 702 - Supervisory Contracting Officer, Develop Others and Pay it Forward
The instructor was very engaging, used time wisely, and kept us all involved. The course allowed for full participation and was very interesting. I was expecting it to be boring. I'm glad I was surprised and proven wrong. I truly enjoyed the class. FFM 421 - Applied Fair and Reasonable Pricing Workshop
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This page may contain links to pages and/or documents outside the Department of Veterans Affairs Domain. These are annotated as shown below. We hope your visit was informative.
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External Links Disclaimer
This page may contain links to pages and/or documents outside the Department of Veterans Affairs Domain. These are annotated as shown below. We hope your visit was informative.
Non-Government Sites — You will leave the Department of Veterans Affairs web site by accessing links annotated with this graphic. VA does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of the linked web site.
