Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework
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The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) is the national qualifications framework for Scotland. The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership promotes lifelong learning in the country. Through the SCQF, learners can gain a better understanding of qualifications and plan their future learning. It also helps employers understand different types of qualifications and supports effective recruitment and workforce development. In addition, it helps education and training providers of all kinds to identify the level that has been studied in a particular subject and makes it easier to transfer credit points between different learning programmes.
The SCQF is in the custody of, and managed by, the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership (SCQF Partnership or SCQFP). Since its creation in November 2006, the SCQF Partnership, which is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity, has aimed to: ensure that, where appropriate, all assessed learning and qualifications are included within the Framework and extend the recognition of informal and non-formal learning; fully develop and promote the Framework as a lifelong learning tool; and develop relationships with other frameworks internationally.
Its members are the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education; College Development Network; the Scottish Qualifications Authority; and Universities Scotland. Scottish Government has observer status. In addition, it has an independent Chair, a co-opted Director representing employer interests and another co-option is the Chair of the SCQFP Quality Committee.
Background
SCOTCAT
Scottish higher education institutions had long used the SCOTCAT (Scottish Credit Accumulation and Transfer) system for equating courses from different institutions. SCOTCAT had three levels. Level 1 was equivalent to University 1st Year, an HNC or a Certificate of Higher Education (Cert HE). Level 2 was equivalent to University 2nd Year, an HND or a Diploma of Higher Education. Level 3 was equivalent to Years 3 and 4 at a Scottish University, and generally these credits lead to a Special or Honours Degree.
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Following the creation of the Scottish Qualifications Authority by the merger of the Scottish Examinations Board and SCOTVEC, efforts were made to unite the different levels of vocational and academic qualifications. The aim was to make it easier for employers and education institutions to understand the level to which a person had been educated.[1] A secondary aim was to remove prejudice against vocational and non-traditional qualifications.
Establishment
Following from these two efforts, relevant stakeholders agreed to create a common framework for all current qualifications. This led to the development of a 12-level framework with learning programmes being placed at a specific level with a credit weighting.
Changes have been made to Higher Education level courses to prepare the Scottish system for the Bologna process.[citation needed]
The Framework
By using two measures, the level of a qualification or learning programme and the number of credit points awarded, the Framework helps you understand and compare various Scottish qualifications.
The level of qualification indicates the level of difficulty and the number of credit points indicates the length of time it takes to complete. One SCQF credit point represents an average of 10 hours of learning time.
The Framework has 12 levels. The different levels indicate the level of difficulty of a particular qualification. The Level Descriptors outline the general outcomes of learning at SCQF levels under five broad headings:
- knowledge and understanding;
- practice (applied knowledge and understanding);
- generic cognitive skills (e.g. evaluation, critical analysis);
- communication, numeracy and IT skills; and
- autonomy, accountability and working with others.
The Descriptors allow broad comparisons to be made between qualifications and learning and allow learners, employers and the public in general to understand the range of skills and learning that should be achieved at each level.
Credit points are a way of showing how much time it takes, on average, to complete a qualification or learning programme. Along with the Level Descriptors, they allow learners, learning providers and employers to compare different qualifications at the same or even different levels.
In common with other credit systems, the SCQF works on the basis that one credit point represents the amount of learning achieved through a notional 10 hours of learning time which includes everything a learner has to do to achieve the outcomes in a qualification including the assessment procedures.
In some instances, it may be possible to transfer SCQF credit points to other learning programmes to ensure that a learner does not have to repeat any learning they have already undertaken.
Universities and colleges, SQA and other awarding bodies decide how many of the credit points already received from previous learning can be transferred into their programmes. In all cases of credit transfer, it would be the decision of the accepting learning institution as to how many credit points could be transferred.
See also
- Education in Scotland
- Scottish Certificate of Education (until 1999)
- Scottish Qualifications Certificate (from 2000)
- Standard Grade (until 2013)
- SQA Higher
- SQA Advanced Higher
References
- ^ "Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework". Scottish Qualifications Agency. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
External links
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