Apprenticeships could soon have same status as degrees and diplomas
Apprenticeships and trade certificates could soon be elevated to the same official status as university diplomas and degrees, industry training organisations say.
They say the qualifications are just as demanding as academic study, but are officially recognised as much lower-level qualifications and that is out of step with other countries.
The Qualifications Authority has been reviewing the Qualifications Framework which places basic "foundation" courses at level 1, most trade certificates at level 4, Bachelors degrees at level 7 and PhDs at level 10.
The review is considering the descriptions of what is required at each of the 10 qualification levels and once that is completed, probably next year, industry training organisations are likely to rewrite some of their qualifications and ask for them to be listed at a higher level.
The chief executive of the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation, Warwick Quinn, said trades qualifications should be treated fairly.
"If you're doing a trade qualification, it's a certificate so it sits at level 4 irrespective of how complicated or significantly difficult it is. Now under what we're proposing, if it's a difficult and a long qualification that requires a lot of research, a lot of cognitive thinking etc, it should be listed higher on the framework equal to whatever qualification an academic pathway might have that has a similar output," he said.
Quinn said applying that approach should result in a level 4 building qualification being bumped up to the same level as a diploma or even a degree.
"We would see it somewhere round level 6, maybe 7 if you're doing an advanced trade or the supervisor programme that's attached to it because the outputs are very similar to the types of outputs you'd expect from an entry-level degree," he said.
The chief executive of the industry training organisation Competenz, Fiona Kingsford, said most of its level 4 trade certificates should really be at level 5 or 6 of the Qualifications Framework.
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