The
Future of U.K. Professional and Vocational Qualifications
The past decade has seen a major effort
to enhance and extend vocational preparation in the United Kingdom
to meet the challenges faced in a changing world of employment.
Traditionally professional bodies have played a major part in determining
the education and training required for membership of their various
fields of work. This is especially true of the more senior roles
in the professions of most relevance to business. As the range of
specialists has widened so the number of professional bodies has
multiplied.
At the same time there has been a major movement to improve basic
preparation from the bottom up, starting with programmes for the
unskilled and the unemployed. Through this has emerged a national
policy for the development of vocational standards where the main
determinant of what was to be sought reflected the perceived requirements
of employers in the occupations concerned. These National Vocational
Qualifications (NVQ’s) have been promoted over a wide range
of occupations and industries. To reinforce this approach General
Vocational Qualifications (GNVQ’s) have been developed to enable
young people to demonstrate their knowledge and awareness of what
is required even when in their final years at school and the biggest
sector for which they have been developed is business and its related
services.
The enthusiasm for such an approach has however, met with serious
reservations both among those in higher education and within the
professional bodies primarily concerned with more senior roles in
the various professions. Even though this approach has been taken
to higher levels in respect of management than any where else the
limitations of the underlying functional approach to specifying
what is needed have remained a major constraint on further movement
on these lines.
The whole approach is reflected at government level in the merger
of the Department of Employment, where the approach had been fostered,
with the previously known as Education and Science. Now the whole
question of further development on these lines has been the subject
of a major consultation with the parties most concerned and the
outcome is best described as a pause for reflection.
The professions, like the higher education institutions, argue
that it is just not feasible to confine preparation to the assessment
of performance at even an extended range of tasks. The role of the
professional demands a wide range of knowledge and an understanding
that just cannot be tested by specific task performance. A halt
has therefore been called to any movement towards higher levels
of GNVQ’s than has already been achieved and the emphasis switched
to achieving a wider acceptance of the standards so far developed,
possibly with some modification of their prescription as has already
happened to those for managers.
The professional bodies while accepting many aspects of the approach
have their reservations as to the feasibility of extending the work
place assessment of performance as a sole basis for the award of
qualifications. This is very important for the many bodies so much
of whose work is outside the United Kingdom.
At the same time there is a widespread acceptance of the need for
greater flexibility as between the various awarding bodies such
as credit transfer arrangements and this applies to academic institutions
as well. Now there is a new element to be considered.
A Qualifications and Curriculum Agency has been set up by the U.K.
Government. While its original target was qualifications for those
still at school the intention is to widen its remit to all stages
in "lifelong learning". Its task is to sustain quality
assurance not only within operations in the United Kingdom but wherever
U.K. institutions franchise their programmes abroad.
The widened range of professional bodies remains a major force
in determining and sustaining British qualifications world wide
but these bodies do so against the background of a strong vocational
emphasis on what they seek to develop among those who seek their
qualifications.
Equally the whole basis of the UK approach to "competency"
continues to be a matter of debate. David McClelland, whom many
regard as the founding father of this approach, has expressed his
reservations about its degree of reliance on what employers deem
appropriate as opposed to the job-holders themselves! Clearly we
are a long way from resolving such concerns but the professional
bodies, whose membership is largely made up of job-holders, are
clearly an important voice in the debate.
British Higher Education Reviewed
Two years ago we were confronted by the issues to be faced by the
Committee on Higher Education in the United Kingdom chaired by Sir
Ronald Dearing. Fresh from his review of school leaver qualifications
he was invited to tackle the politically sensitive questions concerning
the future of British Higher Education and its funding. The timing
of the study was such that its report would be available to whichever
party won the General Election due not later than May 1997.
Now we have the very far reaching recommendations of the Committee
and a new government which campaigned with the slogan "Education,
education, education"! Above all Dearing acknowledges increasing
demand for higher education at degree and even more at sub-degree
level both at home and abroad. Yet the most immediate change is
the abandonment of free higher education, already accepted by the
new government.
For over two decades overseas students have been called upon to
meet the tuition fees at British Universities. UK students have
had to meet the fees for post graduate programmes such as the MBA.
From 1998 they must pay at least £1,000 per annum in tuition fees
for all first degrees they may have to pay even more at those universities
that, faced with strong demand for their programmes, now add on
"top up fees" to offset reduced government funding. The
plan is that there should be loan facilities repayable once the
graduates enter employment.
While this is the change that has caught the headlines it is but
one of many important innovations proposed. Already the previous
government had set up a Qualifications and Curriculum Agency to
oversee awarding bodies for those up to 19 years of age. Its remit
is now extended to "life-long learning". The curriculum
changes in schools emphasising skills in communication, numeracy
across higher and further education.
There is a new emphasis on the professional training of those who
teach in higher education linked to a renewed stress on quality
assurance. One noteworthy aspect of the latter is the proposed restriction
from 2001 onwards on the franchising of centres abroad as well as
in the UK to those arrangements that meet the Quality Assurance
Agency’s specifications. This is an important assurance to
students world wide when faced with the plethora of offerings through
competing institutions.
The Author: Prof. Ray E. Thomas, Bath University, U.K.
This article first appeared in Educational Courses in Britain
