Development of the frameworks for higher education qualifications The idea of a national framework for higher education qualifications (FHEQ) was proposed by the
Dearing and Garrick Reports in 1997. Dearing's proposed FHEQ had 8 levels, not all of which were subsequently adopted: "Postgraduate conversion courses" were what are now called graduate certificates and diplomas but were, at the time of the report, often awarded as master's degrees, "Higher honours" referred to integrated master's degrees. The first editions of the FHEQ were published by the
Quality Assurance Agency in January 2001 as two documents: one covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the other Scotland. As currently, the 2001 England, Wales and Northern Ireland FHEQ had five levels, the 2001 Scotland FHEQ had six levels. The Scottish FHEQ was tied to the SCQF, but the England, Wales and Northern Ireland FHEQ was not tied to the NQF until 2004, when the latter was reorganised (as described below). The levels were: While the framework for England, Wales and Northern Ireland did have numbered levels, the letter designations were often used to avoid confusion with the different numbering on the NQF. The major difference between the 2001 framework and the current framework was the position of Ordinary (non-honours) bachelor's degrees. These were, at the time, considered to be at the same level as foundation degrees and diplomas of higher education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, rather than being at the same level as honours degrees but with a lower credit value. The Scottish FHEQ was certified as aligned with the framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEQ) in 2007. The second edition of the FHEQ for England, Wales and Northern Ireland was issued in August 2008, and was also then certified as aligned with the EHEA framework. The major changes were the shifting of the non-honours bachelor's degree to its current position, allowing it to be considered a first cycle (end of cycle) qualification in the EHEA framework and the adoption of the NQF/QCF level numbers in place of the separate labelling of higher education levels; it also made explicit that primary qualifications in medicine, dentistry and veterinary science were at master's level. A second edition of the Scottish FHEQ was issued in June 2014, doing away with the separate labelling of levels in higher education and simply adopting the SCQF numbering, and a third edition of both, united into one document as
The Frameworks for Higher Education Qualifications of UK Degree-Awarding Bodies, was published in November 2014. This gave unified level descriptors for master's degrees and doctoral degrees, while maintaining separate descriptors for lower level qualifications.
The Qualifications and Credit Framework The
Qualifications and Credit Framework was used from 2008 until 2015 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It replaced the National Qualifications Framework (NQF; see below) and was replaced in turn by the Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF). It used the same levels as the (post 2004) NQF and the current RQF, but differed from the NQF in that in addition to qualifications being assigned a level they were assigned a credit value, indicating their size. The QCF had prescriptive rules on qualification design and assessment; a review in 2014 found that "the rules placed too much focus on structure, and not enough on validity, and that they were not flexible enough to meet the variety of needs covered by vocational qualifications". This led to the establishment of the RQF, which does not contain specific rules for qualifications in the manner of the QCF.
The National Qualifications Framework National Qualifications Framework (
NQF) was a former qualification framework developed for qualifications in
England,
Wales and
Northern Ireland, which was in use between 1999 and 2008, although the five levels of NVQ dated from 1986. The NQF was introduced to help employers compare the many hundreds of qualifications available in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Originally, the framework only went up to Level 5, but in 2004 the old Level 4 was subdivided into Levels 4, 5 and 6 and the old Level 5 was subdivided into Level 7 and Level 8. This allowed the NQF to better align with its equivalent for higher education, the FHEQ. The Framework, after 2004, had nine levels (with entry level qualifications offered at Entry 1, Entry 2 and Entry 3) covering all levels of learning in
secondary education,
further education,
vocational, and
higher education. Though academic higher education courses (such as
academic degrees) were not covered in the NQF, it was broadly aligned with the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (FHEQ), allowing levels of achievement to be compared. Only when a course had been accredited and became part of the NQF was it then eligible for state funding. As such, some courses which were popular internationally and offered by British-based organisations were not available to
state schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The NQF was the joint responsibility of England's
QCA, Wales's
DCELLS and Northern Ireland's
CCEA. BTECs and Cambridge courses are vocational equivalent, which under the QCF were equivalent to 1, 2 or 3 GCSEs or A Levels, at Grade A*-C. OCR Nationals were discontinued in 2012. The NQF was replaced with the QCF,
Qualifications and Credit Framework in 2010, which was a
credit transfer system which indicated the size of qualifications (measured in learning hours), as well as their level. The QCF was, in turn, replaced by the Regulated Qualifications Framework in October 2015. ==Other frameworks==