A qualifications framework is a formalized structure in which learning level descriptors and qualifications are used in order to understand learning outcomes. This allows for the ability to develop, assess and improve quality education in a number of contexts. Qualifications frameworks are typically found at the national, regional, and international level.
History The origin of qualification structures can be traced back to organized education in antique civilizations such as Greece, Sparta, Rome and China. As no specialized career structure existed in these cultures, organized education focused on broad issues of international citizenship, and not on professional preparedness, which was achieved mainly through informal apprenticeships. As civilizations developed, the role of social class and caste received more emphasis, and people who displayed certain competences were grouped together. The advantage of having participated in and benefited from education gradually became more visible as civilizations developed. In this respect the Chinese civilization was the most organized, with a series of levels attached to examinations, which in turn granted the right of access to public office. During the Middle Ages education had a particularly religious nature, while the late medieval centuries were categorized by a new approach to education alongside the clergy and feudal knighthood. New economic objectives as a result of the Crusades and the development of banking, importing and shipping across Europe and the West gave rise to the development of cities, and a new form of education aimed at professional life. Education became available to the middle classes, and the merchant and craft guild system developed.De Villiers, H. C. 1997. Affirmative action and the qualification structure. Unpublished Master's dissertation, University of Pretoria.
The first institutions of formal higher education were established at this time in the Islamic universities of Al-Azhar in Cairo and Sankore in Timbuktu.Serpell, R. 2007. Bridging between orthodox Western higher educational practices and an African sociocultural context. Comparative Education, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 23–51. By the eleventh century, universities were developing in Europe, largely in reaction to the previous narrow religious doctrine. The establishment of the University of Bologna marked the beginning of the European university tradition. This was also the time when the term 'qualification' acquired a more definite meaning, although it retained its emphasis on social class structures. The nineteenth century brought with it a wave of liberalism and consciousness of equal rights and opportunities, accompanied by increased specialization and bureaucratization. The increased need for skilled employees eventually resulted in an emphasis on credentials which persists to the present day. During the twentieth century the emphasis shifted to human capital theory and technological development, eventually leading to concerns whether the education system was able to meet the demands of the labour market. At the time it was argued that the strong divisions were creating barriers to learning, and that there was a need to do away with the sharp distinction between academic and professional systems.
During the late 1980s, and strongly influenced by the thinking on integration but also by a focus on professional training through a competency approach, the notion of a National Qualification Frameworks (NQF) emerged in the United Kingdom. Its roots lay in the competence approach to professional education which was broadened by Jessup,Jessup, G. 1991. Outcomes: NVQs and the Emerging Model of Education mid Training. New York, RoutledgeFalmer. as well as the Scottish Action Plan which led to the modularization of professional education in Scotland.Scottish Education Department (SED). 1983. 16–18s in Scotland: An Action Plan. Edinburgh, SED. The idea developed that all qualifications could be expressed in terms of outcomes without prescribing learning pathways or programmes.Young, M. F. D. 2005. National Qualifications Frameworks: Their Feasibility and Effective Implementation in Developing Countries. Geneva, ILO. Within this politically charged melting pot of factors, and a renewed emphasis on the importance of lifelong learning, the first NQFs were established in Australia, England, Scotland, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa between 1989 and 1995. France, as a country with a different tradition from the anglophone countries, was also a member of this group of first-generation NQFs (Bouder, 2003; Keevy et al., 2011).Bouder, A. 2003. Qualifications in France: towards a national framework? Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 347–56.Keevy, J., Charraud, A. and Allgoo, K. 2011. National qualifications frameworks developed in Anglo-Saxon and French traditions. Considerations for sustainable development in Africa. Research report for the ADEA Triennial on Education and Training in Africa, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 27 November – 2 December 2. In the case of France, the NQF drew on a hierarchy of qualifications that found official expression at the end of 1960s in a nomenclature which tried to rationalize the number of students leaving the education and training system to correspond with the needs of the labour market.
Across the first-generation countries, NQFs were conceptualized as hierarchical classifications of levels of formal learning programmes and their associated qualifications and certificates.Coles, M., Keevy, J., Bateman, A. and Keating, J. 2014. Flying blind: policy rationales for national qualifications frameworks and how they tend to evolve. Integral features of NQFs included new quality assurance and standards-setting regimes based on learning outcomes, and importantly for this study, level descriptors which are used to determine the level at which a qualification should be pegged.Tuck, R. 2007. An Introductory Guide to NQFs: Conceptual and Practical Issues for Policy Makers. Geneva, ILO.
Construction All qualifications frameworks are learning outcomes-based. In qualifications frameworks, qualifications are developed using learning outcomes, and the set of hierarchical levels they consist of are described with a set of learning level descriptors.
Qualifications frameworks emerged from two complementary education and training discourses in the late 1980s: the competence approach to professional education, and the shift to learning outcomes, embedded within the broader concept of lifelong learning. As a result, the interrelationship between competences and learning outcomes was not only firmly embedded in qualifications framework thinking from the very outset, but was also used in a hybridized form.
National level
A national qualifications framework (NQF) addresses the educational quality concerns of specific countries. Some examples include: Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) German Qualifications Framework (Deutscher Qualifikationsrahmen, DQR)
Regional level A Regional Qualifications Framework (RQF) focuses specifically on qualifications at the regional level. Some examples include: European Qualifications Framework (EQF) SADC RQF CARICOM TVET Qualifications Framework (TVET QF) ASEAN RQF Qualifications Framework for the European Higher Education Area (QF-EHEA) Pacific Qualifications Register (PQR)
International level/world reference levels The purpose of the world reference levels lies mainly in their potential to provide a neutral and independent reference point against which a level of learning can be assessed.
The idea of a set of world reference levels was considered in May 2012, during the Third International Congress on professional education, held in Shanghai, China. The research included in this report was initiated by UNESCO based on the recommendation from the Congress to the UNESCO Director-General to undertake this work. The UNESCO TVET Section, in cooperation with the European Commission's Directorate General for Education and Culture and the European Centre for the Development of Professional Training (CEDEFOP), subsequently invited key organizations in Brussels to deliberate on the Shanghai Consensus RecommendationUNESCO. 2012. Shanghai Consensus: Recommendations of the Third International Congress on Professional Education 'Transforming TVET: Building skills for work and life', Shanghai, People's Republic of China, 14 to 16 May. in September 2013. The deliberations included regional developments in Europe, notably the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and in Asia, notably a common standard for competences developed by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as the move towards regional qualifications frameworks (RQFs) in Central America and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). At the national level, the development of national qualifications frameworks (NQFs) was considered across and beyond these regions, including Mercosur (Mercado Común del Sur, the Common Market of the South) in South America and the development of a transnational qualifications framework (TQF) by twenty-nine small states of the Commonwealth.COL and SAQA. 2008. Transnational Qualifications Framework for the Virtual University of Small States of the Commonwealth. Concept Document. Pretoria: Commonwealth of Learning and South African Qualifications Authority. The additional dimension of learning metrics as used in longitudinal studies, international competence assessments and diagnostics reviews was also considered.
The Brussels deliberations concluded that the mobility of people (both learners and workers, including migrant workers) and jobs (including outsourcing and offshoring) constitutes an important driver for the world reference levelsChakroun. 2013. Outcomes of the workshop, Engaging global conversations on recognition of TVET quali cations based on learning outcomes, 25–27 September 2013, Brussels, unpublished report. emanating from the Shanghai Consensus Recommendation. It was noted that jobs are not always matched to demands during these movements, because of demographic shifts and the differential capacities of economies to create jobs. The cross-border provision of education and training, as well as the technological developments resulting in increased open and distance learning, and online learning, were also identified as important drivers towards world reference levels. Another important driver identified in the Brussels deliberations was the need for international dialogue, cooperation and capacity-building in the field of the recognition of qualifications.
Other types of frameworks
Sectoral qualifications frameworks Sectoral qualifications frameworks are developed within a specific country and with a specific sectoral focus. Examples include: a TVET framework in Jamaica the occupational qualifications subframework in South Africa the General Education Qualifications Framework in Poland the Engineering Sectoral Framework in Armenia
Transnational qualifications frameworks Transnational qualifications frameworks are developed across a range of countries. Where these countries are in the same geographical proximity they are referred to as regional qualifications frameworks (examples include the SADC RQF and the EQF). Transnational qualifications frameworks can also be developed across countries that are not in the same geographic proximity.
For online learning
The E-xcellence framework