Reservations about compentency-based educational schemes

  1. Assessment.

    Tedious assessment processes with the emphasis moved away from learning to assessment of behaviours in practice. Institute of Manpower Studies (1994) considered that the problem of implementing accreditation such as that found with National Vocational Qualifications was the time involved in preparing to be assessed, organising the assessments process, and the one-to-one nature of the assessment. Employers using NVQs reported this difficulty.

  2. Bureaucracy.

    A new vocabulary and major system of specification, documentation and verification is needed to bring the concept into practice presenting major difficulty in resourcing. The vocabulary of units, elements, performance indicators and range indicators statements references a complete, atomistic approach to performance specification. At meetings of practitioners, it is difficult to obtain consensus definitions. Often - it is employed 'educationalists versed in competence specification according to the specification framework who do the rafting in the language - presenting their proposals for ratification to practitioners who can do but little to modify the descriptors.

    Furthermore the assessment process may specify several different levels and standards of performance to be demonstrated and assessed. Each has to be described succinctly. The assumption is that the descriptors of levels and performance have common meaning to the assessors who are seeking to measure candidate performance. The descriptors may not be capable of measurement in language and practical terms - questions of reliability and utility arise.

  3. Generality of universal standards.

    Many employers who take up National Vocational Qualifications will typically want to be selective and even modify them for their own use. A research project at UMIST in the mid to late 1980s examined over 20 employer schemes for the Management Charter Initiative. Each had been tailored to the particular employer's interests.. National standards were seen as too general, and employers focused training on their own needs rather than wish to confirm to national definitions of occupational competence standards. This undermines the veracity of a national qualification.

  4. The quality of the assessment process

    It is very difficult to ensure a satisfactory quality of assessment. Much depends on a large number of individual assessor - all must themselves be trained for the assessment process to carry out consistent assessments. The assessors themselves mut be measured and monitored to ensure consistency between assessors and for any one assessor over time.

    Initial opposition to written examinations needed to be softened, especially as NVQs in colleges of further education became GNVQs (General National Vocational Qualifications) and it became apparent - over time - that assessment instruments such as traditional examinations were needed to test candidates knowledge and ability to describe, analyse, discuss and evaluate etc. The time-constrained tests did not go away as n assessment instrument that had its purposes especially for occupations covered by more technical disciplines.

  5. Prevailing systems of HE.

Within large institutional systems such as British higher education, there is resistance to the idea that educators are not competent to set the educational agenda and the methods used to develop and assess students.

An academic reaction towards an apparent training or procedural competence agenda in higher education is natural. In the management competences area, there are problems with the idea that students can be assessed as technically equipped to take up a managerial role without testing their intellectual capacities to analyse and debate the ideas that shape the context, meaning and alternatives.

Peter Robinson at the London School of Economics identified a very low actual take-up of NVQs. The availability of NVQs did not correspond with an increase in the training provision available to individuals. Indeed the NVQ assessment approach involved individuals preparing themselves largely in isolation for assessment (perhaps some employer mentoring support). The approach however did not materialise into a respected movement of sufficent a scale nationally to justify all the institutional effort and expenditure that went into developing it.

Between 1991 and 1995 the net growth in the number of all vocational qualifications awarded was at NVQ Level 1 and Level 2 only - with Level 2 being the largest area. There was no growth in award numbers at level 3, and a slight fall in the number of awards at levels 4 and 5. (Robinson 1996, p. 4)

Awards of traditional vocational qualifications offered by the professions outstrip NVQs , especially at higher levels.

NVQs are heavily concentrated in clerical, care/personal service, sales and service sectors. They are under-represented in higher managerial, professional and technical occupations, in crafts, and in the internationally exposed areas of manufacturing, business and financial services.

Vocational qualifications particularly at the higher order levels are still knowledge-based and controlled mainly by universities and the professions. The aspiration for a system which matched employer needs and individual development through "competency-standards" to the economic and skills benefit of the UK as a nation has not materialised even though there are queues (2003) for plumbing courses - a shortage area of skill that has been publicised by media coverage, is seen to pay well and enable individuals to become self-employed.

The weak spread of NVQs stimulated reviews of the schemes and processes by civil servants. The Secretary of State for Education commissioned a report. NVQs were moved into the remit of the   Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), and its National Occupational Standards Board. The work of QCA/OSB may be summed up by this extract from the QCA WWW site

The National Occupational Standards Board will allow top-level employers to work with representatives of the Sector Skills Development Agency, the regulatory bodies and the four administrations of the UK. It will meet twice yearly to:

The academic world remains largely disinterested even though "employability skills" are spoken of widely in terms of student degrees. Some universities provide a few programmes leading to NVQs but mostly these are offered by coleges of further education and a few private training organisations. A few employers still have schemes where members of staff are encouraged to be accredited for their existing job competencies. Many of these are public sector organisations who have NVQs as one of the planks in their Investors on people strategy.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Agency reported that

The idea was that employers would set the agenda and define the standards for national vocational qualifications - but implementation and sustainability is still doubtful. The government intervenes heavily funding the NVQ system design and development but on looking back and surveying where NVQs are today and who champions them (see www.qca.org.uk) we might conclude NVQs are still treading water. An educational idea - championed by enthusiasts that may not be the best use of resources. As a macro level of national change - instituted by government - success has been flat.

In some areas e.g. certification of electricians, builders, gas fitters (Corgi) etc industry regulation of required skill does work - but this is largely a local thing involving "licence' to practice. In the computing and high technology areas - NVQs are a dead duck.

What other alternatives might have worked?