The McQuarrying Confusion

The pending change in the qualifications framework has gained a great deal of national press attention recently with headlines screaming at the birth of the McDonalds A-level. Such an environment leads to confusion over the changes, argues Carol Pillinger, director of awarding body EMP. So here she offers a more reasoned response to the new Qualifications and Credits Framework.

Many people will have heard the news items screaming about McDonalds’ A-levels in the press over the past couple of months and this may arouse fear about what is going on in the qualifications world.

The first thing to say is: don’t panic! Madness doesn’t reign. The McDonalds item was a good example of the press picking out the bits of a story they thought may grab the public’s attention without really clarifying the issues involved.

In the extractives world there has been a huge concentration on using qualifications to help companies improve their employees’ competence and meet the targets set for 2010 for a fully competent workforce.

NVQs have been central to this qualification environment and have done an excellent job in moving people towards the targets. However, now there is greater help for learners and employers to understand the sometimes murky world of qualifications. This is the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF).

In short, the QCF is a new way of recognising skills and qualifications. It does this by awarding credit for qualifications and units – small steps of learning. It enables people to gain nationally recognised qualifications at their own pace along flexible routes.

At present, it is hard to understand all the different types of qualification that learners hold. As employers are aware, some of the problems concern what level they are, how long they take to complete, what content they cover, and how they compare with other qualifications.

The new framework should ease these worries by presenting qualifications in a way that is easy to understand and measure.

Every unit and qualification will have a credit value. One unit of credit stands for 10hours of learning. Learning in this context can mean a range of diffferent activities. It can include practical stuff, learning with a trainer, gaining experience, doing some research in your own time, or doing some assessment.

Also, every unit and qualification will have a level that indicates how difficult the qualification is. Levels go from entry to level eight. Finally each qualification will have a name which indicates its size – these terms can be used at all levels.

• Awards (one to 12 credits)
• Certificates (13 to 36 credits)
• Diplomas (37 credits or more).

This means that when you look at a title you will know exactly what it covers, how big the qualification is, how hard it is and, finally, how long it will take to complete.

So, for example, a level eight award will be a difficult qualification which takes between 10 and 120 hours in total to complete. A level one diploma is a very basic qualification, which takes over 370 hours to complete.

Each unit will have an identical structure indicating both learning outcomes – or what a learner is expected to know, understand or be able to do as a result of the process of learning – and assessment criteria – or what a learner is expected to achieve. Note that these latter criteria are not about the learning process or the assessment method.

Other advantages
Flexibility for all is the key advantage. For employers the QCF will help them to devise pathways for their employees which really meet their needs – it allows qualifications to be built from building blocks to meet a changing environment.

Our SHE qualifications, for example, could be built around particular site needs. These could include work-based and knowledge assessment tested in a number of ways, depending on what is appropriate for each learner.

Or, when an employee does a two-day training course on a piece of plant, that could count towards a QCF qualification or be a QCF qualification in its own right.

For employees, it means they can carry with them from employer to employer learning gained in various places, such as in-house training, qualifications done in other companies, or qualifications done for other jobs.

This will all be stored on a new government database – I sense a huge intake of breath at this point! – which means that when people go for a new job the new employer can be given access to that potential employee’s electronic learner achievement record and check what he or she has achieved – right down to the content detail if necessary – all in one place. What it will also mean, of course, is that job seekers cannot lie on their CVs any longer!

The next stages for extractives
EMP is working closely with Proskills and people from the industry on the QCF pilot in a number of ways.

Firstly, we are turning two training companies’ course assessments in plant and conveyors into QCF qualifications. Secondly, we have put a proposal to the industry group at Proskills to update the SHE qualifications to the new format to ensure that they meet the needs of all of the sector, and are future-proofed.

We are also working with a large employer to help it put its existing in-house training into the QCF format, as well as working with Omagh College in Northern Ireland to certificate their new quarry entrant course for 16-year-olds using the QCF format.

Finally, we are moving our technical certificate for the apprenticeships to the QCF format.

And NVQs...?
You will start to see the new qualifications gradually coming in over the next year or so – everything is supposed to be moved over to the new system by 2010.

A question that is probably on your mind is what does all this mean for NVQs. Unfortunately that won’t be clear until the summer.

The chances are that they will continue to exist but may look very different to the National Occupational standards on which they are based. They will still reflect the content of them but won’t be one and the same document any longer.

So, to sum up...
The QCF is like a shopping basket – employees simply put in items they need to get qualified for their current job. When they move they may ask their new employer what else needs to go into the basket to ensure qualification for that job.

Nothing’s wasted, everyone can easily understand and check what an employee has in terms of qualifications and, as things change, the qualifications change very easily.