The United States does not have a national qualifications framework. This is partly due to the widely dispersed responsibility for education and qualifications policy between different levels of government and non-governmental actors. It is also paradoxically due to the strong convergence in patterns that have emerged over the years, in part due to the role of private policy advocacy groups like the Carnegie Foundation. A recent arrival on this scene is the Lumina Foundation. This has championed the idea of articulating the traditional qualifications structure in higher education of associate, bachelors and masters degrees in terms of expected learning outcomes. This has led to the development of what they call the degree qualifications profile. Lumina is currently consulting on the second draft of these.
The Lumina Foundation are also working on recognition of non-degree certificates for vocational education and training and the articulation between high school and post-secondary education. This agenda is influenced by the same factors that have spurred the development of NQFs in Europe and other parts of the world.
Lumina is inviting comments on its draft profiles before March 15th. http://www.luminafoundation.org/dqp
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