VOCATIONAL QUALIFICATION

What exactly are they?
Many questions have been put forward over the last few years, especially as we have seen some major changes to the development and delivery of vocational qualifications. Questions like: What is QCF and how does it work? What are the different levels and how do they equate to academic qualification? What is the difference between NVQs and VRQs?  These changes can be very confusing: however, we will try and make it a little more understandable:

Firstly; QCF (Qualifications Credit Framework) is where vocational qualifications have been broken down in to manageable units, they are all mapped against the NOS (National Occupational Standards) and each unit is given a credit base, normally one credit for each 10 hours of learning, which can include research and practice time. These credits can be accumulated to form a qualification or can be used as accreditation of prior learning for higher qualifications, reducing duplication. This presents much more flexibility and allows employers/learners to choose the appropriate units to fit with their actual training need. To facilitate the demand for bite sized learning, the QCF qualifications are deliverable at each level:

Award, a short course normally 1 to 2 units of 1 to 12 credits
Certificate, a course normally of 3 to 4 units of 13 to 36 credits
Diploma, several units normally of 37 credits and more.

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Delivery of these vocational qualifications can be by NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications) or VRQs (Vocationally Related Qualifications):

NVQs are an assessment of competence and are suitable for individuals who are already working at the appropriate level; but do not have a nationally recognised qualification. They have mandatory and optional units and the individual is supported in building a portfolio of evidence, which is assessed by the awarding body. New to this year is the requirement for NVQs to include an element of learning, so they will include workshops, or one to one tuition. This is not new to Focus as we have always included learning with our NVQ delivery.

VRQs are fully taught, off the job, classroom delivered training that provides the underpinning knowledge for a particular role and is also the Technical Certificate within apprenticeships. The structure of the qualification is based on mandatory units and optional units, which are normally delivered as an open course, on site or off site. The learner does not need to be working at the relevant level to take the VRQ; however, would need to have the ability to achieve as the learning can be quite challenging; for example operators aspiring to be managers can take a management VRQ.

We hope this enlightened you a little and if you have any further questions or would like some more clarity please don’t hesitate to call our Skills Coach Neil Wilkinson.