DIVA and the SCQF

Progression: Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF)

One way of bringing vendor offerings into mainstream education and benefiting learners is to ensure greater transparency of where they fit by mapping onto the SCQF. This was endorsed as an option in the sector consultation from the 2009 DIVA review, scoring higher than building vendor specific SQA units. It would also make the mapping onto SQA units and awards easier.

The SCQF is intended to help employers, learners and the general public to get a perspective on the full range of Scottish qualifications and understand how qualifications fit together and link to other forms of learning. The Framework describes courses and programmes that lead to qualifications, identifies progression options, and allows individuals to transfer credit points between qualifications to take advantage of existing achievements. As such it has the potential to be a key vehicle for showing how the offerings from vendors and other industry bodies fit within mainstream Scottish curriculum. At the moment, only Microsoft has credit rated some of its offerings.

The importance of mapping vendor offerings onto the SCQF is endorsed by the Scottish Government in its Skills for Scotland strategy, in which it calls for focus on:
Challenging employers, learning providers, awarding bodies and others to use the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) as a tool to support learning, specifically to facilitate the recognition of learning and for enabling individuals to move smoothly through learning environments, getting credit for learning they have already achieved.

It is also endorsed by both e-Skills and Skillset.

e-Skills states as a priority:

Continuing to contribute to the development of qualifications and units which enable recognition of IT vendor awards and employer training within the SCQF

Skillset states:

We will look closely at accreditation of industry training and its recognition through the SCQF by building stronger industry/education links
Skillset is keen to ensure that all qualifications in its footprint sit within the SCQF and sees the SCQF as the vehicle for realising the vision of the Skills Strategy in Scotland, Skills for Scotland.