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Mary Curnock Cook QCA Director of Qualifications and Skills called for improvements in the awarding body and qualification system at the Federation of Awarding Bodies conference on Thursday. She sees the future to be a more flexible, yet streamlined qualification system. The bulk of qualifications stripped, but replaced with a more flexible system enabling learners to gain qualifications with units from any awarding body. She sees the future for Examining Bodies to be in partnership, developing flexible framework qualifications for learners and awarding bodies sharing a common data bank to increase choice and flexibility.
She highlighted that in her first year in her role, the QCA has accredited 752 new qualifications and only 279 reached the end of their shelf life. Mary explained the significance of this growth “This means we have a net gain of 500 new qualifications over the last year. At the net progress to date we will have over 10,000 qualifications by 2010.This is not really where we want to be going.”
Mary continued to explain, “If we look under the microscope, there is a massive amount of duplication… there is similar content, expressed in different titles… It is a bit of a mess if the truth be told. This is potentially quiet challenging for many awarding bodies.” She highlighted the fact that there are over 226 separate qualifications in Hospitality, Catering and Tourism. Learners always want choice and employers are looking for skills and qualifications relevant to their business, but Mary bravely hinted at why Vocational Learning does not have the same “currency” in the public eye as GCSEs, A-Levels and Degrees due to myriad of qualifications available. As Ivan Lewis, Minister of Skills and Vocational Education explained in the very next speech at the FAB conference “The Individual shouldn’t meet the needs of the qualification, the qualification should meet the needs of the individual.”
Mary went on to explain that she wanted the awarding bodies and the QCA to “look at them (qualifications) and strip them down to the chassis” This process will of course be in consultation with the sector skills councils and awarding bodies in the sector. Mary’s solution to reducing the duplication and still providing the customer with what they are looking for was for the awarding bodies to start to work in a more homogenous fashion. She spoke of the concept of a common database amongst awarding bodies of learners and units. “Engineers will be able to take a language module with their qualification if for example they wanted to work in the Gulf. Hairdressers can take a business administration module if they wanted to run their own salon… We will still add new units to framework reflecting best practice. We are not kerbing the freedom of awarding bodies to give customers what they want.”
Gavin O’Meara
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