A brief guide
Introduction
Public confidence in academic standards requires public understanding of the achievement represented by higher education qualifications. Qualification titles (like 'honours degree' or 'masters degree') must be used consistently. The qualifications framework is designed to achieve this.
The framework tells employers, students and other stakeholders in higher education what the holders of named qualifications have achieved, and the skills they will bring to a job.
The framework gives guidance to universities and colleges on designing academic courses to ensure those outcomes are achieved. It provides a basis on which standards can be assessed and assured.
By clarifying the standards to be associated with named qualifications, the framework will help uphold the international standing of UK higher education.
Describing qualifications
The framework has draft descriptors of the attributes of holders of each main qualification, on which the Agency is seeking comment. The final versions of these will then be used to produce succinct summaries of these attributes, which can be used easily by employers and others who need to understand what qualifications represent. For example, the honours degree attributes may be summarised as follows:
An honours graduate will have developed an understanding of a complex body of knowledge, some of it at the boundaries of current research. Through this, the graduate will have developed analytical techniques and problem solving skills that can be applied in many types of employment. The graduate will be able to evaluate evidence, arguments and assumptions, to reach sound judgements, and to communicate effectively.
An honours graduate should have the qualities needed for employment in situations requiring the exercise of personal responsibility, and decision making in complex and unpredictable contexts.
Similar statements will be produced for all levels, following the consultation.
Describing learning
The notion of 'level' of study or achievement is one that may be used to chart progression through a course of study, or to differentiate one qualification from another. Academic and intellectual progression is secured by imposing increasing demands on the learner, over time, in terms of the acquisition of knowledge and skills, the capacity for conceptualisation, and increasing autonomy in learning. Put simply, as students progress within a course, and as they move to courses at higher levels, they will tackle work of increasing difficulty, and will do so with greater reliance on their own learning abilities.
The framework will help ensure that course design enables progression to occur. Higher education is about the creation, application and transmission of knowledge. Levels are thus measured against the forefront of current knowledge, as represented by current research or equivalent advanced scholarship. Descriptors of level refer to how closely study approaches the frontiers of knowledge in a discipline, and across what range of such knowledge.
Assessing achievement
Examinations, or other assessments, must be set so as to measure achievement at the level of the qualification. Students must demonstrate that they have achieved the outcomes that warrant the award of the qualification.
Number of levels
The framework has six levels.
There are two postgraduate levels, corresponding to Masters and Doctors degrees. Some courses offered to graduates contain only undergraduate material, for example to enable a graduate to convert to a new field of study. Such courses fulfil a valuable vocational role, but should not use postgraduate qualification titles. The use of the Masters title should be limited to qualifications that are genuinely postgraduate in level.
There are four undergraduate levels, with the highest being the honours degree. The other levels provide for non-honours degrees (including the Foundation Degree proposed by the Government for introduction in England), and for intermediate qualifications. Such intermediate qualifications will allow for the certification of achievement at 'stopping off points' from courses leading to higher qualifications. This was proposed in the Dearing Report as a means of promoting increased participation in higher education through life long learning.
Implementation
The framework is described fully in a position paper published by the Agency.
Comments are invited by 30 September 2000. Thereafter, the framework will be used by universities and colleges in designing and describing the courses they offer, and by the Agency in making judgements about the standards of provision.
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