QCF Course -

What is the QCF?

The QCF is a new framework for recognising and accrediting the qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  The Framework is at the centre of a huge reformation of vocational qualifications.  The QCF framework is designed to simplify and make the whole vocational qualification system easier to understand.  With the QCF, qualifications are more relevant to employers needs and are extremely flexible for learners.

How does the QCF work

The qualifications in the QCF are divided into three categories, awards, certificates and diplomas.  Every unit in the QCF will have a credit value and one credit equals 10 hours, this shows the learner how much time is need to complete a particular course.  Each unit will also have a level ranging between the entry level and level 8.  The levels represent how difficult the course is.

• Awards 1-12 credits
• Certificates 13 – 36 credits
• Diplomas 37 credits or more

With the QCF the learner can have an award at level 1 or an award at level 8. This is because the qualification type 'award, certificate, diploma' represents the size of a qualification, not level of difficulty.
Each QCF qualification title contains the following:

• the level of the qualification, these range from entry level to level 8
• the size of qualification, whether it is an award, certificate or diploma
• the content of the qualification.

Just by looking at the title of a particular qualification you will be able to determine how difficult it is, how long it the average learner will take to complete the course, and its overall content. Just to give you an idea of the level of difficulty of the units and qualifications in the QCF it might be useful to know that GCSEs (grade A*- C) are equivalent to QCF level 2, AGCE A levels are equivalent to QCF level 3 and a PhD is equivalent to QCF level 8.

The QCF will benefit learners in the following ways.

• offer more flexibility
• Easy access to information about the commitment and time needed to achieve the necessary qualification.  This will allow learners to juggle that commitment with their other responsibilities
• allow learners to gain credits at their own pace and combine them in a way that will help them reach their goals
• Enables learners to transfer credits between the various qualifications.  This avoids the learner having to repeat courses
• The ability to record all their achievements on an electronic learner record database.

 

The QCF will benefit learning providers in the following ways

• enable providers to design more flexible programmes, suitable to the individual needs of learners
• track learners' achievements through the use of a unique learner number (ULN) and a learners electronic learner record
• help them describe achievements to employers and learners in a language that is easy to understand

The QCF will benefit learning providers in the following ways

• assisting in rapidly recognising the level and size of achievements of a prospective employee
• enable companies to get in-house training recognised within a national framework
• describe levels of achievement in terms that are simple and easy to understand

 

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