Memorandum submitted by the Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority (QCA)
BACKGROUND
1. The Leitch Review of Skills, Prosperity
for all in the global economy—world class skills, was
published in December 2006. The Review urges the UK to commit
to becoming a world leader in skills by 2020 against the benchmarks
set by the OECD league tables.
2. The report calls for a seismic shift
in skill levels. Table 1 shows the targets and what they mean
in terms of new achievements by 2020.
Table 1
| | |
|
| Existing Target
(% population)
| New "Leitch" 2020
Target
| New attainments
by 2020 |
| | |
|
| Literacy & numeracy | 85%
| 95% | 7.4 million |
| Level 2 skills | 69% | 90%
| 5.7 million |
| Shift from Level 2 to Level 3 |
| | 1.9 million |
| Level 4 skills | 29% | 40%
| 5.5 million |
| Apprenticeships | |
| 500,000 |
| | |
|
Source: Leitch review; DfES.
| | | |
3. Leitch echoes previous policy calls for a shift from
supply-side to demand-led skills based on the needs of individuals
and employers. He emphasises economically valuable skills that
provide real returns for individuals, employers and society, and
calls for shared responsibility between government and employers.
4. The Review also proposes a change in the law so that
all young people remain in full or part-time education or training
up to the age of 18.
5. The radical uplift in targets called for in the report
requires a shift in pace and ambition for the UK skills agenda.
QCA believes there are five key elements to a strategy which will
support the Leitch targets:
— The implementation of the Qualifications &
Credit Framework (QCF)
— The successful roll out of the new 14-19 Diplomas
— The development of a "curriculum guarantee",
verified by higher education and employers, for post-16 learners
— A market-led approach which ensures that employers
and their employees can have quality-assured learning achievements
recognised within the national skills profile
— A flexible regulatory regime which facilitates
desired outcomes while securing standards
THE QUALIFICATIONS
& CREDIT FRAMEWORK
(QCF)
6. The Qualifications & Credit Framework provides
the opportunity to create a unified, integrated system of recognising
achievement which will encourage lifelong learning and support
the Leitch vision of a flexible, responsive and demand-led approach
to skills acquisition.
7. With its partner regulators in Wales (DELLS) and Northern
Ireland (CCEA), QCA has developed a new regulatory framework which
can define learning achievements in terms of challenge (level)
and volume (credit) —hence the Qualifications and Credit
Framework or QCF.
8. By building up qualifications from a coherent and
defined cluster of "units" of learning, each of which
has a known credit value, learners can take more flexible approach
to acquiring skills at school, college, in the workplace and throughout
their lives and careers. The design allows credit to be accumulated
in small blocks and transferred between qualifications and awarding
bodies.
9. A fully integrated system of qualifications means
that, for example, a young person might gain credit for units
of their maths GCSE knowing that this will also contribute to
acquiring a Level 2 Diploma in Construction and the Built Environment.
Units from the Diploma could transfer across to an Apprenticeship
or another related occupational qualification.
10. Such as system has the potential to articulate with
credit systems in Higher Education Institutions so that learning
achievements and qualifications could have a recognised value
and currency for progression to further learning or employment,
regardless of who funds the learning, who accredits it, which
agency quality assures it or where the learning takes place.
11. For people who move jobs, locations or whose family
circumstances change, this flexible system means that no learning
is lost: credit for an achievement can be "banked" and
used later when training is resumed.
12. Employers who might not need the full skills portfolio
offered by a particular qualification, can offer relevant units
to their employees who can gain credit in a nationally recognised
system and contribute to their "learner achievement record".
13. 2006 saw the first qualifications accredited to a
trial version of the new Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF).
Learners participating in a series of tests and trials all over
the UK are first registered with a Unique Learner Number. Each
time a unit is completed and assessed successfully, that achievement
is logged against the unique learner number, building up an individual
"learner achievement record".
14. The learner achievement record is linked to a powerful
database of available units and qualifications so learners can
check their progress towards a chosen qualification, or they can
see what other qualifications the units contribute to if they
want to progress to a new goal. At any time, a learner can log
on to a website, using a PIN number, and check their own personal,
validated record of achievement or show it to a potential employer.
15. The sheer scale of the targets proposed by Leitch
is such that nothing short of a radical new approach to the way
in which we recognise skills is needed. The QCF has the potential
to make skills achievements more accessible to more people and
to provide a cost-effective and simple way to allow organisations
to train their employees against a national skills profile.
16. This more flexible system will not only attract new
learners into quality skills training but will also mean that
much more of the high quality training that companies are already
doing can be counted towards a national skills profile.
17. The Leitch vision for 2020 cannot be achieved without
the new Qualifications and Credit Framework.
14-19 DIPLOMAS
18. The first five diplomas will be piloted at three
levels from 2008, followed by another five lines of learning in
2009 and four more in 2010. These new composite qualifications
are designed to offer a bold new curriculum designed by, and commanding
the respect of, both employers and educationalists.
19. They provide a contemporary, vocational context for
learning and mix both general and applied content. Diplomas are
positioned as education not training and represent the key strategy
in the 14-19 phase to secure increased rates of participation
and achievement.
20. Although the Leitch agenda is largely about adult
skills acquisition, it must be remembered that around 30% of the
workforce of 2020 has yet to complete its full-time education.
21. By significantly increasing the number of young people
achieving qualifications at Level 2 and above, by increasing participation
rates in full-time education post 16, and by securing greater
levels of progression to higher education, the Diplomas build
a sound platform for further skills development in the workforce.
The success of Diplomas will play a critical role in achieving
the Leitch vision for 2020.
A CURRICULUM GUARANTEE
POST 16
22. The Leitch Review proposes extending the period of
compulsory education and/or training from 16 to 18 years of age.
Although there will need to be a national debate and wide consultation
about the merits and demerits of compulsion for this age group,
QCA nevertheless believes that it would be beneficial to develop
the concept of a "curriculum guarantee" for 16-18-year-olds.
23. A "curriculum guarantee" would define key
elements of curriculum, verified by industry and educationalists
(including HE), which should underpin any education or training
programme—whether full or part-time; academic, occupational
or vocational—for this age group.
24. It should guarantee functional skills, wider personal,
learning and social skills to underpin employability, alongside
the core sector, occupational or subject content.
25. Leaving aside the issue of compulsion, a curriculum
guarantee is a powerful concept to support increased participation
post 16 and will provide a much more secure platform for adult
skills development.
A MARKET-LED
APPROACH
26. The Leitch Review uses the term "demand-led",
a term which has been trailed in many previous skills policies
including, most recently, the 2003 Skills Strategy, the 2005 Skills
White Paper and the 2006 FE White Paper. In spite of its widespread
acceptance as a desirable policy position, the demand-led revolution
in skills has largely failed to take root.
27. We believe this is due to a lack of understanding
of the real implications of a demand-led system and a continuation
of policies which have tried to "plan" a demand-led
system—conceptually, a contradiction in terms.
28. QCA prefers the term "market-led" because
it embraces the concept not only of meeting demand but also of
stimulating the market and creating demand.
29. A fundamental problem has been that while governments
use qualifications as a proxy for skills, employers on the whole
do not. With a few notable exceptions, employers train their employees
to meet specific skills needs—to use a till, to assemble
components, to sell-up to customers, to understand products, to
use new technologies. The training they provide is efficient,
outcome focussed, highly targeted and cost-effective.
30. Qualifications have had limited success in skills
training in many sectors because they may be too large, insufficiently
targeted, and are seen as representing a common standard rather
than being best in class.
31. Exceptions are professional qualifications, some
licences to practise and some vendor certificates (eg Microsoft).
32. Figure 1 illustrates a new approach to the market
for qualifications and skills acquisition. On the one-hand is
what we have called the "managed market" which embraces
those skills which the government chooses to buy (fund) on behalf
of the nation, the economy and society. This includes mainstream
qualifications for compulsory education and key occupational qualifications
likely to be popular for young people after the age of 16.
33. Given that public funding is the single most powerful
lever in skills acquisition, it follows that providing funding
creates a "managed" market.
34. Figure 1 also introduces the concept of a "non-managed"
market for qualifications and skills. This is a market which both
exists and can be stimulated. It includes the skills training
that employers want or need to do, and the skills which individual
learners might want, need or choose to acquire. The non-managed
market is a world of targeted, cost-effective, outcome-based skills
training. It is flexible, market-led and not constrained by pre-conceived
notions of size or format or content. It is delivered in the size,
format and content that its users demand not those defined by
the narrow confines of a qualification.
35. The non-managed market cannot be conveniently shoehorned
into the traditional managed model using whole qualifications.
A truly market-led approach calls for a revolution in the way
we create and stimulate a market place for quality assured skills
acquisition which adds value for employers and learners. It requires
a commitment to finding flexible, non-bureaucratic, cost-effective
ways in which we can recognise and record skills acquisition and
an approach to funding which is focussed on stimulating the market
for skills acquisition.
36. The managed and non-managed sectors of the market
are not mutually exclusive and the Qualifications and Credit Framework
is designed to accommodate both and provide a regulatory framework
for both. The QCF defines and recognises both whole qualifications
and smaller units of learning which might contribute to a whole
qualification.
37. QCA now needs to work with employers (as well as
providers and awarding bodies) to develop ways in which employer
skills training can be brought into the "recognised"
system. This will call for an approach to regulation which enables
common principles to be applied in different ways to managed and
non-managed markets—"right touch" regulation based
on risk and market factors.
38. We believe that a Quality Mark for recognised and/or
accredited learning outcomes (including qualifications) should
be developed to distinguish high quality provision. The use of
such a quality mark could be coupled with developments in the
Investors in People initiative and used as a pre-requisite for
training funded through Train to Gain or the new Learner Accounts.
39. Only Quality Marked training should be funded, although
the quality mark itself carries no presumption of funding. Sector
Skills Councils must play a more prominent role in identifying
skills gaps and needs which should have priority for funding.
The traditional model of funding a learner on a specific training
course leading to a named qualification outcome may no longer
be the best way to fund learning in a demand-led market. Funding
should be used strategically to stimulate the market for training.
40. QCA is working closely with the Skills for Business
Network which has a critical role to play in verifying the content
(through National Occupational Standards where appropriate) of
key qualifications. As the regulator (alongside DELLS in Wales
and CCEA in Northern Ireland), QCA has a statutory role to regulate
and accredit qualifications but it should do so with the advice
and endorsement of the relevant SSCs, professional bodies or other
sector organisations.
41. The targets outlined in the Leitch Review cannot
be met unless employers can participate more easily in high quality
training which can be recognised and counted against the national
skills profile.
A FLEXIBLE REGULATORY
REGIME
42. The Leitch report repeatedly endorses the need for
a regulatory system to underpin its recommendations. There is
a clear case that all evidence of learning that "counts"
in the QCF should be regulated—an assurance that it can
command confidence and is fit for purpose in supplying the skills
needs of the nation. We shall need to show that we can be sufficiently
flexible to adapt regulatory mechanisms to support, rather than
hamper, the range of provision envisaged by Leitch. This includes
working more closely with the higher education sector to ensure
that there are no barriers to progression to and from HE.
43. Turning a genuinely market-led system into a reality
means placing the initiative as close to the user as possible.
Sector bodies, employers, training providers and colleges will
all be key players. The regulatory regime needs to empower these
organisations to stimulate and respond to the market whether through
partnership with recognised awarding bodies or through the award
of credit for achievements which may be recognised by, for example,
employers and colleges themselves. Some of these new models are
already being tested through the QCF trials being carried out
by QCA at present.
44. We envisage further rationalisation of qualifications
in the "managed" market while a flexible regulatory
system should embrace a much wider range of achievements across
the "non-managed" market.
45. The aim is to ensure that those who have their learning
achievements recognised by the national system can be confident
that the skills they acquire will count towards further learning
or qualifications and will have currency for progression in learning
and/or employment. In addition to the quality mark proposed in
paragraph 38, QCA proposes an enhanced version of the existing
National Database of Accredited Qualifications (NDAQ) which will
include details of the credits that can be awarded at unit level
to stand alone as achievements of note or be used to accumulate
towards a whole qualification. The enhanced NDAQ will ensure that
learners can quickly access information about qualifications and
the ways in which their achievements can contribute towards them.
46. The world of business is increasingly global in its
dimensions. This means that qualifications and achievements need
to be recognised at national, European and international levels.
Qualifications are already jointly regulated across Wales and
Northern Ireland and, increasingly, this principle is being extended
to Scotland which also works in close partnership with QCA and
other regulators. Work is in hand to ensure that our frameworks
for recognising achievements and qualifications align with European
and international frameworks.
47. A flexible, "right-touch" regulatory regime
can add value to skills training for employers and individuals
as well as ensuring that more high quality training can be counted
against national skills targets.
CONCLUSION
48. The Leitch vision of skills acquisition is highly
ambitious and is only achievable if those organisations working
on the supply-side lift their sights and embrace a radically different,
customer focussed approach to the market for skills training.
It is a market that needs to be stimulated, not managed. The Qualifications
and Credit Framework is a key enabler to achieve this vision since
it supports a market-led, flexible and responsive approach to
recognising achievement and qualifications.
February 2007
Figure 1
A NEW MARKET ORDER
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