Should older qualifications be placed in NQFs?

Post added by Brian Maguire

In response to: Should older qualifications be placed in NQFs?

Perhaps Irish employers are particularly sensitive to qualifications (and maybe prone to accept them even without learning outcomes!) but we regularly encounter situations where the fact of a qualification, including its level on the NFQ is an important factor, even alongside relevant experience. They are used as screening measures. For example, "Does the candidate have a secondary school leaving certificate?" or "Does the candidate have a bachelors degree?" If yes, then proceed to interview, assess experience etc. An additional element for migrant candidates is whether the qualification from the home country is comparable to that specified from the Irish NFQ. The employers are not familiar with ISCED, a statistical system. They are just becoming familiar with the NQF after 10 years!
 
Most of us achieved learning outcomes from our formal education and training well before QFs. The programmes we followed and the qualifications we obtained were not designed around learning outcomes but in most cases we learned something and in many cases there is some element of continuity between pre-NQF and post-NQF worlds. I have yet to hear someone say, "my old qualification is completely useless, I must study or train again to obtain one based on learning outcomes."
 
This is partly to do with the difference between ex ante and ex post recognition. In the context of reform I think it perfectly reasonable to say that any qualification not based on learning outcomes that is offered in the future will be recognised in the NQF. This puts pressure on providers to change their practice and gives fair information to learners what to expect from programmes. However ex post is all that we have for the vast majority of learners who were educated/trained in the past.
 
David Raffe has warned of difficulties of implementing "strong" reforming NQFs on the basis of the research work he and colleagues carried out from the ILO. (e.g. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03050068.2012.686260)

One of his conclusions - "Successful NQFs have typically had two features. They have respected the need for qualifications reform to start from the existing system and to progress incrementally; and they have exploited a multilevel structure."