By Alan Hammond

The SA Qualifications Authority (Saqa) has the responsibility for promoting the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), so they could be excused if they were constantly promoting it. However they have taken a wider view of their role and have engaged with commentators who are opposed to the system.

During the Researching Work and Learning conference in Stellenbosch, Saqa organizing a full morning’s debate on the South African NQF, with some input from foreign academics on their experience of standards and frameworks.

While we have to struggle to co-ordinate the aims and interests of a few different stakeholders into the South African NQF, imagine the complexity of those developing the European Qualifications Framework. The EQF, which is in the final phases of development, has to co-ordinate the interests and wishes of 27 countries and all their stakeholders.

One of the issues raised was whether qualifications frameworks support or hinder lifelong learning. Does reaching a particular level discourage individuals from studying further as they are happy with the level they have reached?

Stephanie Matseleng Allais presented a paper at the symposium which was provocatively entitled, “Why the SA NQF failed”.

For Allais the local NQF was developed on the problematic outcomes-led model. “The design was based around the idea that outcomes must be developed separately – from curriculum and providers,” explained Allais.

Allais was critical of the ‘design-down’ model where outcomes are established first and then more detail is added. While the outcomes model was acceptable to all stakeholders, Allais believes this may be because outcomes do not have a fixed meaning, as the meaning changes in different contexts from different points of view.

The result of the NQF development is that we have 818 qualifications and more than 10 000 learning outcomes. However in all this, knowledge has become invisible.

The different perspectives on qualifications frameworks in different cultures was also addressed in the symposium.

In the developed world qualifications frameworks are used for regulation of a system that exists. However in the developing world they are used as a tool to develop a market.

International delegates were able to bring a range of opinions to the debate, based on their experiences. Bob Boughton from the University of New England in Australia praised Saqa for encouraging debate on the NQF. This was completely different to the role played by Australian authorities and Boughton believes that Australia would have benefited greatly from the debate.

Boughton believes that in Australia the qualifications framework has been completely commoditized and the Australian Training Board sells its standards to training providers. Boughton believes that the Australian system has become too large and unmanageable.

James Keevy from Saqa was also able to add international perspective to the qualifications framework debate. Qualifications frameworks are being developed by 70 countries and regional frameworks are being developed in three regions.

“We must be careful to generalize,” explains Keevy, ‘as there are so many different models of NQFs”.

Keevy and Saqa are engaged in continual research on development of the South African National Qualifications Framework. “Aspects that need to be changed, others that need to be discarded and others need more analysis,” explained Keevy.