Once a person has completed Level 1 Certification, they no longer have to pay to attend Website Evaluations. They can, and the ticket sales go toward paying the Apprentice Roles, but they are not required to.
Apprentices having Level 1 Certification can also sign up to take paid roles at future website evaluations.
After Level 1 Certification, Apprentices can also participate in community-led website evaluations. These are led by other Apprentices to gain practice, and are unpaid events not associated with the x of 100 Website Evaluations.
The certification is only if you want it. If you want to join my Apprenticeship Agency, Level 11 Technology, this is the only way to join currently. Some folks come to one or two of the website evaluations to learn the process and then they take my resources and go off and I never see them again (and that's okay!). I hope they apply even a little of what they learn in their career!
This certificate is not accredited by any institution, and is offered only by Level 11 Technology. It is a recognition of how much time you've spent learning this particular process. Since each website evaluation takes about 4 hours, by the end of 10 of them, you'll have spent 40 hours learning how to assess different types of websites for accessibility issues.
In the future, it would be lovely to be recognized by the industry at large, but there are many hoops to jump through to do that. I don't yet see the value in going that route (there are thousands of dollars involved in the process, which would take away from running this low-cost program and impact my ability to hire early-career designers and developers, so for now it's just recognized by my organization). I anticipate that future employers who hire my apprentices will recognize their value as a result of working with me, but we are at least a year and a few months away from graduating apprentices and placing them at other companies.
The goal of building Level 11 Technology is to provide paid professional development and experience for early-career digital technologists. There are thousands of these people looking for work, and I wish I could hire all of them. However, to ensure the process of vetting the folks I work with is fair, equitable and transparent, I created the certification process.