Main navigation:
Breadcrumb navigation:

In this section

New to SCQF?

Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework

To access the SCQF Ready Reckoner please follow this link: SCQF Ready Reckoner (154 KB) . GRAPHIC: PDF icon

Introducing the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework:

You will start to become more aware of the SCQF as it now features on SQA's Scottish Qualifications Certificate.

What is it?

The SCQF is a way of comparing the wide range of Scottish qualifications. It covers achievements from school, college, university and many work-based qualifications. It does this by giving each qualification a level and a number of credit points.

As you can see from the table, the level of a qualification shows how difficult the learning is. The credit points show the size of the qualification and how much work is involved in achieving that qualification. For example, one person may study a course at Intermediate 1, SCQF level 4 and another at Higher, SCQF level 6. Both award the same number of SCQF credit points but at different levels of difficulty.

What is it for?

The SCQF makes qualifications easier to describe and understand. Before the SCQF, there was no easy way to compare qualifications of different types. Now there's an easier way to show that, for example, an Advanced Higher is at the same level as an HNC (though it's much smaller). SCQF is being used more and more to measure achievement in schools, colleges and universities.

The SCQF can:

ready reckoner