Initial Soundings Paper on Vocational Qualifications
A NIACE Response
Published February 2003
NIACE is the national organisation in England and Wales with a broad aim to advance the interests of adult learners and potential learners. Our strategic plan commits us to supporting an increase in the numbers of adults engaged in formal and informal learning and at the same time to widen access to learning opportunities and the acquisition of skills and competences to those who do not traditionally take part in education and training.
NIACE works with all the many interests active in the education and training of adults. It undertakes advocacy and policy work with national, regional and local agencies; provides information and advice to organisations and individuals, carries out research and development projects, organises conferences, seminars and training courses, publishes journals, books and directories, and co-ordinates a major national promotion of education and training for adults through Adult Learners’ Week.
1. The proposed vision
1.1 NIACE welcomes the proposed vision set out in the document, and looks forward to its realisation in the coming years. In particular we welcome:
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The implication that individual vocational qualifications will recognise the acquisition of both knowledge and skills. |
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The encompassing of work preparation skills within the definition of a vocational qualification. |
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The focus on ‘vocational learning’ rather than ‘vocational education and training’. |
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The explicit commitment to flexibility and responsiveness, though NIACE would prefer these to be related to both ‘employer needs’ and the needs of individuals. |
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The reference to supporting ‘individual learners’ rather than to ‘employees’. |
1.2 We look forward to the development of a genuinely ‘revitalised’ and easily understood framework which can be genuinely inclusive in the recognition of vocational achievements. We hope that the concept of ‘vocational’ will continue to be interpreted in the creative and learner-focused sense in which it is used in this opening statement.
2. Role and responsibilities for developing vocational qualifications
2.1 NIACE views the concepts of ‘skills gaps’ and ‘qualification needs’ as different from each other. While we would want Sector Skills Councils to be responsible for identifying skills gaps, we would want a wider range of organisations, including NIACE itself, to be involved in research and information on qualification needs. This is because, as the proposed vision itself makes clear, ‘needs’ are related both to employers and to individual learners, as well as communities.
2.2 In order for qualifications to be developed and updated quickly, a more flexible and devolved regime of accreditation is needed that enables this updating to take place by awarding bodies themselves within an overall framework of accreditation overseen by the regulatory authorities. In order to be responsive to local and sector needs, it will be necessary to permit a variety of outcomes to be achieved within named sets of qualifications. The concept of ‘equivalent value’ rather than ‘identical’ in comparing these different achievements will be a useful addition to the criteria for approving qualifications.
2.3 In order to encompass the range of needs of individuals and employers in a future framework of qualifications, it will be necessary to build the following features into the framework:
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The conceptualising of qualifications as large repositories of related achievement sets, within which rules of unit combination for individual certification opportunities can be identified. |
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The development of a system of credit accumulation and transfer which permits different achievement sets to be compared with each other by level and size. |
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The development of rules for exemption and credit transfer between qualifications which will enable the explicit ‘interlocking’ of routes to achievement across qualification boundaries. |
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The development of a standardised unit format for representing learner achievements (both skills and knowledge) for all vocational qualifications and the establishing of a national unit databank in a web-based format. |
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The development of an electronic transcript of achievement which can record and present learner achievements on all vocational qualifications in a standard format. |
2.4 The lessons from the National Qualifications Framework to date are that current structures and procedures have over-emphasised rigour at the expense of responsiveness to need. In particular, NIACE would wish to see the development of far more responsive and flexible vocational qualifications targeted at adult learners. This may mean the development of separate accreditation criteria for these qualifications from those general qualifications targeted at 14 to 19 year olds in full-time education.
3. Ensuring vocational qualifications meet the needs of individuals and employment
3.1 In order for national occupational standards to inform the development of future vocational qualifications, they need to be less rather than more specific. The more general the presentational form of these standards, the more they will be able to be adapted to meet ‘local and sector’ as well as national needs. NIACE would prefer to see the development of vocational qualifications that demonstrated, through procedures overseen by SSCs, that they were ‘related to’ national standards, rather than adopting these standards verbatim into the qualifications themselves. This would have the added benefit of extending the life expectancy of these standards.
3.2 We see no reason in principle why a vocational qualification should not contain an element that is locally or sectorally determined. Indeed, this facility already exists in the design criteria for Higher Level Vocational Qualifications. The proportion that may be so determined may vary across different sectors and different levels. It would therefore seem appropriate for SSCs to develop general guidance on local or sectoral variations permitted for vocational qualifications related to their standards. This facility to vary the structure of a qualification in response to local or sectoral need would be an important component of maintaining future ‘vitality’ and responsiveness within the national framework.
3.3 NIACE sees a unitised, credit-based system of qualifications as providing the design basis for ensuring that both new entrants to the workforce and existing employees are able to have appropriate skills and knowledge recognised. As long as individual qualifications permit a variety of both skills and knowledge to be recognised through flexible assessment methods it should be possible for individuals both inside and outside existing employment to demonstrate the acquisition of relevant achievements.
3.4 In order to ensure that vocational qualifications are cost-effective to deliver and assess by a variety of different types of provider, the current requirement that a proportion of all achievements on vocational qualifications should be externally assessed should be dropped. NIACE would also welcome the more rapid development of electronic forms of assessment, where these can produce valid evidence of achievement.
3.5 NIACE sees no reason why all training should lead to a qualification. However, we do see opportunities for employers to map their training programmes against national standards in order to ensure that they could provide a basis for progression towards certificated achievement, if the employee chose this option. The new IT Skills Framework developed by e-skills UK provides an interesting model that could be extended to other sectors.
3.6 The development of unitised, credit-based qualifications will enable links between qualifications to be made more explicit through exemption and credit transfer arrangements. If qualifications become seen as ‘holding frameworks’ within which a wide range of individual achievements can be certificated, then the establishing of progression routes to named qualifications will demand an explicit ‘pathway’ planning procedure for individual learners as part of the process of registration and induction on each qualification.
3.7 As NIACE’s primary focus is on adult learners, we will trust our colleagues in other organisations to comment on the needs of 14-19 year olds.
3.8 NIACE supports the view that units of qualifications should represent coherent and worthwhile opportunities for recognising learner achievement. The value placed on them should formally be identical to that placed on a whole qualification, ie each unit should be capable of certification at a designated level, and should bear the imprimatur of the regulatory authorities. If the procedures and criteria for accreditation of qualifications were consistent with this status, then the currency of learner achievement could be re-located to unit certification, and vocational qualifications could be defined in terms of a set of rules of combination, expressed in terms of credit achievement for designated units. This ‘compositional’ approach to the achievement of vocational qualifications would mark a significant step forward in developing a more flexible and responsive system of qualifications.
4. Quality Assurance
4.1 The key area on which regulation should focus is the systems employed by awarding bodies to provide qualifications through approved centres. In particular, their approaches to assessment will need to be quality assured. NIACE would not wish to see regulation focusing too closely on the content of individual qualifications. Indeed, if unitised qualifications are to continue to be responsive to changing employer and individual needs, then awarding bodies will need to be able to update individual units of qualifications without submitting them for a detailed process of accreditation by the regulatory authorities.
4.2 One way of enhancing the final quality of the qualifications offered to learners would be to create a more open and shared process of development of individual qualifications, in which all interested parties were involved. This could be managed primarily through a web-based facility, parts of which could be password protected, which would allow a wide range of interest groups to contribute to qualifications development. In order to work effectively, the regulatory authorities would need to own such a facility, and would need to create clear structures and procedures within which interested parties could contribute to this development. Such a facility could play an important ongoing role in the continuous updating and improvement of qualifications in response to changing demands.
5. Funding
5.1 One of the ways in which funding mechanisms could be utilised to help learning providers respond more effectively to identified need would be to base funding arrangements on the delivery of good quality learning programmes, rather than on the offer of approved qualifications!
5.2 NIACE believes that credit-based funding mechanisms can facilitate greater responsiveness in the qualifications system, though we do not see a direct connection between credit systems (which relate to the measurement of learner achievement) and ‘bite-sized chunks of learning’ (which relate to arrangements for the provision of learning programmes). Thus, for example, Ufi offers some learndirect courses with a notional learning time of less than one hour. But a credit system based on the measurement and certification of achievement at one hour intervals would be patently sclerotic in structure and would create a nightmarishly bureaucratic and costly regime of assessment. At the other end of the spectrum (and again the experience of Ufi is relevant) qualifications that require lengthy commitments of time and effort by both learners and providers before achievements can be recognised tend to de-motivate learners and lead to high levels of ‘non-completion’. NIACE offers the following responses to the question of how responsiveness might be promoted through the use of credit:
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It is not ‘credit-based funding mechanisms’ that will facilitate greater responsiveness in the qualifications system. However, ‘the funding of credit-based qualifications’ will produce this desired responsiveness. This is more than a semantic quibble. The concept of ‘credit’ needs to be seen as an integral feature of the design of qualifications, not a characteristic of funding regimes. |
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Linking funding to the credit values of individual units of qualifications and to the credits achieved by learners, will enable a rational and open relationship to be established between the funding of programme delivery and the funding of individual learner achievements. This is because the definition of credit established in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in recent years combines within it concepts of both learning and achievement which make it uniquely appropriate to support funding regimes that incorporate both these elements. |
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Thus a concept of credit will be essential to any funding regime that seeks to stimulate individual learner achievement as well as the provision of more flexible learning opportunities. Neither a unitised qualifications framework nor a modularised curriculum framework can do both of these things. But in order to have the effect of supporting greater flexibility and responsiveness in the qualifications framework, the concept of ‘credit-based qualifications’ rather than ‘credit-based funding’ needs to be developed. |
5.3 Funding arrangements for new qualifications could be enhanced by explicitly encouraging the piloting and testing of new qualifications for a designated period (perhaps one or two years) prior to formal submission for approval within the NQF. Awarding bodies would still be charged with responsibility for conducting assessment and issuing certification in ways that did not undermine the quality of fully accredited qualifications. Again, the use of credit certification might provide a useful mechanism through which innovation and response to rapid change could be more easily accommodated within the NQF through an explicit period of piloting and trialling of new qualifications.
5.4 If occupational standards are conceived as general benchmarks of skills and knowledge to which more specific opportunities for assessment and certification could be related (see above); and if credit-based qualifications included within their design criteria the concept of ‘equivalent value’ for different units of assessment that were related to the same broad standards; and if the accreditation criteria for vocational qualifications mirrored those of Higher Level Vocational Qualifications in allowing a proportion of local or sectoral flexibility in the outcomes of the qualification, then employers could ensure that a proportion of each qualification offered to its employees, could be customised to meet their needs; would be subject to the quality assurance arrangements of an awarding body; and would be related to national standards. This would seem to create the necessary safeguards to enable funding to support the needs of employers (including SMEs) to actually make use of vocational qualifications.
5.5 NIACE sees no reason why unit funding should not be made available to all learners providing each unit is itself a coherent and assessable set of learning outcomes (ie not simply a convenient sub-division of a whole qualification) that provides a worthwhile goal for the learner, and that learners have the right to demand certification for each individual unit achieved.
6. Communications
6.1 The key messages that need to be communicated about vocational qualifications are that they are accessible, relevant to both current and potential future employment, different from school-based qualifications, and are capable of being achieved through a variety of different methods that can be fitted in and around the other commitments of adult learners.
6.2 All other aspects of a future communications strategy for this new vocational qualifications system should reflect this key message.
