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Implementing national qualifications frameworks across five continents

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DOI: 10.1080/13639080.2014.934790

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Klara Skubic Ermenc Ewart Keep

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Implementing national qualifications

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a b
Klara Skubic Ermenc & Ewart Keep
a
University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
b
University of Oxford, UK
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 Journal of Education and Work, 2014

REVIEW SYMPOSIUM

Implementing national qualifications frameworks across five continents,

edited by Michael Young and Stephanie Matselang Allais, Abingdon, Routledge,
2013, xiv + 272 pp., €101.43 (hardback), ISBN13: 978-0-415-83330-1

This book is based on research that was commissioned in 2009 by the

International Labour Organisation and the European Training Foundation
and coordinated by Stephanie Matseleng Allais. The book was edited by
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Michael Young and Stephanie Matselang Allais, two of the main researchers
in the project and among the most influential international experts and con-
sultants in the field. The main goal of the study was to ‘gain insight into
the most recent experience of the achievements of NQFs [national qualifica-
tions frameworks] as well as how they [have] been developed and imple-
mented’ (Young and Allais 2013, 3–4). With the exception of the last
chapter, the chapters had already been published in 2011 in the Journal of
Education and Work (issues 3–4), but the material has now been made
available to the broader public in this publication.
The book includes 14 chapters. Chapter 1, ‘Education, economic globali-
sation and national qualifications frameworks’, written by Hugh Lauder, pro-
vides an economical context in which contemporary NQFs are developing.
In Chapter 2, ‘The educational implications of introducing a NQF for devel-
oping countries’, Michael Young discusses the implications of introducing a
NQF for the providers of education, notably colleges and universities. Steph-
anie Matselang Allais, in Chapter 3, ‘The impact and implementation of
national qualifications frameworks: a comparison of 16 countries’, describes
the methodology of the research, explains the selection of cases, data collec-
tion and analysis, discusses limitations of the study and presents the main
findings of the whole research. She reports that 16 case studies were pro-
duced on qualifications frameworks in Australia; Bangladesh; Botswana;
Chile; England, Northern Ireland and Wales; Lithuania; Malaysia; Mauritius;
Mexico; New Zealand; Russia; Scotland; Sri Lanka; South Africa; Tunisia;
and Turkey. The following 10 chapters provide the results of 10 of the case
studies included in the project. Five among them represent the ‘early starter’
countries: England (Michael Young), Scotland (David Raffe), South Africa
(Stephanie M. Allais), Australia (Leesa Wheelahan) and New Zealand
(Robert Strathdee). Another five representing ‘late starters’ are included:
Botswana (Daniel Tau and Stanslaus T. Modesto), Lithuania (Vidmantas
Tūtlys and Irma Spūdytė), Malaysia (Jack Keating), Mauritius (Carmel
 2 Book reviews

Marock) and Mexico (María Luisa de Anda). The book concludes with
Chapter 14, ‘Options for designing an NVQF for India’, written by Michael
Young and Stephanie M. Allais.
The first chapter sets the scene. Lauder begins with the why question –
the popularity of the NQFs is astonishing; new NQFs are springing up
almost like mushrooms after the rain. In 2009, there were over 70 countries
at some stage of introducing NQFs, in February 2013 there were already
138 of them, and it can be expected that at least 10 more will be introduced
by the end of the year. As Raffe (2011) points out, this trend is truly
remarkable, considering the fact that all of these NQFs are outcomes-based/
related and as such ‘highly controversial’. Raffe believes that the main fac-
tor driving the spread of NQFs is international and ‘relate[s] especially to
countries’ fear of becoming marginalised in global labour, capital and edu-
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cation markets’ (Raffe 2011, 90). Lauder seems to agree and provides a
wider explanation of the phenomenon. He argues that NQFs are a result of
contemporary changes in the global economy, which are characterised by
the rise in the supply of graduates, the new spatial division of labour, the
rise of digital Taylorism and the war for talent (7–8). He convincingly
shows that an increased supply of graduates from low-income countries
reduces the cost of knowledge, while the knowledge economy routinises
intellectual work, giving only the most talented (coming from high-income
countries’ elite universities) ‘permission to think’, and to the rest the oppor-
tunity to ‘translate innovations into routines’. A NQF is one of the tools that
enhances this ‘revolution in standardisation’, helping in the production of
‘working knowledge’. The argument is further developed by Michael Young
in the second chapter, who adds that NQFs are based on the assumption that
‘future societies will be based on ever weaker boundaries between occupa-
tions, sectors and between different fields of knowledge’ (19). NQFs are
therefore seen as tools that can help to increase the transparency (under-
standing) of qualifications in global regions, and thus support their portabil-
ity and mobility of their holders. To maintain the value of qualifications,
their holders need constant (payable?) access to new knowledge (credits) on
the international knowledge market, tailored to their career interests and
labour market needs.
From reading this publication, one gets the impression that the authors
are mostly rather critical about the contemporary developments of NQFs.
From a pedagogical perspective, a critical and normative stance is necessary,
of course; each policy intervention has to enhance learners’ and citizens’
empowerment, using NQFs as management not as a market device (Fernie,
Pilcher, and Smith 2013, 12) or not simply ‘innovation […] that seems
highly saleable to governments by international agencies’ as Keating criti-
cally remarks in Chapter 11 (188). In a similar fashion, Young (Chapter 2)
cautions that in order to promote economic growth, the country’s priorities
need to be focused on access to technical knowledge by the development of
 Book reviews 3

well-structured programmes leading to technical and higher level qualifica-

tions, and not on the mobility of the learners. Similarly, Allais (Chapter 3)
reports that the creation and implementation of a NQF is a ‘costly and
expensive endeavour’, but that the number of certificates awarded is rela-
tively low and their market and educational value is questionable.
With this critical and cautious broader picture in mind, the focus of the
book is, however, elsewhere: its main focus is to inform policy-makers
about the possible goals that can be achieved by this policy instrument. The
authors try to help governments to make sound decisions based on realistic
expectations – a NQF is no magic bullet that can solve the problems that
educational systems face in the global economy context, they say. More-
over, they caution policy-makers about the pitfalls they may encounter
while developing and introducing these frameworks. The authors defend the
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policy-learning approach, elaborated by David Raffe in Chapter 5, and fol-

lowing its principles, they provide the basis for deciding on a strategy for
the creation and implementation of a NQF. In this respect, the last chapter
is a very useful one, in which the authors provide a set of strategic ques-
tions relevant to all governments, not only the Indian authorities. The final
chapter is a must-read chapter for education authorities who plan to develop
NQFs, and also for all stakeholders engaged in the process. It provides them
with a concise and concrete thinking tool that can help them decide on the
goals and functions of the NQF; on its structure, breadth, depth, constitutive
elements; and on the implementation strategy. Based on the lessons from
the international research, the authors suggest policy-makers and stakehold-
ers to engage in the NQF development in two main phases, in which a set
of strategic questions and key decisions are advised to be tackled.
The book is very rich in data, and it opens up very different trajectories
of discussion. Let me touch upon some of them. Probably one of the crucial
elements of the book is the finding that NQFs are not, in all countries,
related to the same political agendas, but that they are rather a tool which
can help implement different agendas and different policies. This finding
has very important political and methodological implications. It shows that
the main topicality of the comparative study is not frameworks in their own
right, but the policies that underlie them. From a political point of view, this
finding is crucial because it can help decision-makers to put wider policy at
the centre of their activities. From the perspective of comparative research,
the finding is important because it indicates that policy, not the NQF, is a
methodologically relevant unit of comparison.
NQFs are a very slippery unit of comparison; what makes them slippery
is the fact that they are based on different policies and are linked to differ-
ent goals. This problem is reflected in the study’s limitations regarding the
assessment of the NQFs’ achievements: since one goal is related to several
political tools, and vice versa, one tool is related to several political goals, it
is extremely difficult to evaluate the importance of one particular tool
 4 Book reviews

involved in one particular goal. Comparative (educational) research is

supposed to be conducted when units of comparison ‘have sufficient in
common to make analysis of their differences meaningful’ (Bray 2004,
248). Therefore, in principle, attention should be paid to ‘the underlying
context of these commonalities and differences, and to their causal relevance
to the educational phenomenon being examined’, explains Manzon (2007,
88). Manzon also cites Ragin (1987), who cautioned that some phenomena
may appear very similar, but their communality is in fact ‘illusory’, which
means that they will have very different outcomes.
The question arises whether NQFs are similar enough to allow for mean-
ingful comparison. The authors show that NQFs are instruments with simi-
larities mostly on a surface level – they all share the logic of levels and
vertical progression based on learning outcomes, and they all have defined
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sets of procedures and criteria for inclusion of qualifications. Their more

in-depth analysis and comparisons, however, reveal many differences, start-
ing from the goals they pursue, continuing with their integration to other
policy tools and agendas and their methods of implementation, not to men-
tion their very different understandings of various relevant concepts depen-
dent on the broader social, political, educational and historical contexts. On
the other hand, NQFs are generally tied to similar declared goals (transpar-
ency, mobility, access, tackling skill mismatch, etc.); they are also very sim-
ilar in that they are all a part of the above-mentioned wider global agenda
(standardisation and the transfer of marketable skills). The study has also
shown that declared goals often seem superficial and not clearly linked to
actual activities and initiatives – as if the governments find the NQFs neces-
sary, but do not know exactly what to do with them.
It therefore seems that these commonalities nevertheless justify the com-
parison of NQFs, especially as the authors did take wider contexts into con-
sideration. This allowed them to produce some generic guidelines that can
improve policy-making regarding the development and implementation of
NQFs: (1) A NQF is not an essential feature of a quality education and
training system. A NQF may be useful only in countries with well-
developed systems that enable learners to access higher level qualifications,
knowledge and skills. (2) Policy-makers firstly need to identify key prob-
lems in the system. (3) A country should introduce a NQF only if the pol-
icy-makers come to the informed conclusion that a NQF can help with
overcoming some of the problems they face and if they can provide enough
financial support. (4) A NQF in its own right cannot increase access to edu-
cation and the horizontal or vertical progression within it. It also cannot, by
itself, solve the problems of skills mismatch. (5) If a decision to develop a
NQF is taken, its design needs to reflect its goals. Other NQFs can function
as a source of inspiration but cannot be directly borrowed – local context
needs to be taken into consideration. (6) The implementation of the NQF
should be incremental and should include different stakeholders. If the
 Book reviews 5

ground is not properly prepared, and if the proposed model does not
undergo a series of public discussions, its implementation can be hindered
by stakeholders’ resistance.
The issue of resistance that came up in the study I find particularly inter-
esting. The majority of the case studies (with the exception, to some extent,
of Scotland and Malaysia) show that the governments faced serious resis-
tance from different stakeholders when trying to implement their NQF.
Why? The question is tackled by Raffe in Chapter 5. Inspired by the imple-
mentation in Scotland, he tries to discover some general principles of NQF
development and implementation. He argues that the Scottish framework is
a rare case of a relatively successful NQF, successful in part because it was
well accepted by the stakeholders. He points out that communication frame-
works – such as the Scottish one – seem to be more successful since they
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build on the existing education and training system and aim to make them
easier to understand. Communication frameworks are usually voluntary and
developed from the ‘bottom-up’ with the involvement of educational provid-
ers. Such frameworks are more modest and do not stir the existing power
relationships. They are therefore less likely to provoke resistance. Moreover,
the author argues, a successful framework builds on previous reforms and is
a part of a long-lasting and incremental policy reform, and so enhances the
sense of ownership by different stakeholders. Finally, Raffe points out that
NQF development and implementation need to be accompanied by ‘cultural
change leading to wider recognition of concepts such as credit and to the
confidence and trust to underpin a qualifications system’ (89).
It seems that cultural change is a particularly important factor influencing
resistance. One cannot overlook the fact that the majority of the studied
cases represent countries in the process of NQF design directly influenced
(or at least inspired) by the ‘early starters’, which are all Anglophone coun-
tries who have also borrowed from each other. Anglophone countries share
some general common characteristics in their education and training sys-
tems, and are – especially if compared to systems of Continental Europe –
characterised by a higher degree of decentralisation, consumer-led education
and a pragmatic and individualistic orientation to learning. It seems that
countries which have developed their contemporary education system influ-
enced by an English, or any other Anglophone, system, manifest their resis-
tance in the form of disinterest from their different stakeholders (schools,
universities and employers). The study did not include – with the exception
of Lithuania – non-Anglophone European countries and their NQFs, and
could not therefore show that learning outcomes in European NQFs play a
rather modest role. Recent CEDEFOP (2009, 2010) studies on NQFs in
Europe have revealed that education providers, learning content, duration of
learning and other input elements retain a vital role in these systems and
their NQFs. The input elements are very often still valued as key
dimensions of quality learning and education. Therefore, outcome-based
 6 Book reviews

frameworks would most probably cause tremendous resistance: scholars and

practitioners in the education field in the region generally support the peda-
gogical principle that systematic and goal-oriented learning is a matter of
communication among a learner, a teacher and the learning content (the
so-called didactic triangle). The role of a qualified teacher who profession-
ally supports and guides a learner is understood as unreplaceable, making
this resistance pedagogically justified.

References
Bray, M. 2004. “Methodology and Focus in Comparative Education.” In Education
and Society in Hong Kong and Macao: Comparative Perspectives on Continuity
and Change, edited by M. Bray and R. Koo, 237–350. Hong Kong:
Comparative Education Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong.
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CEDEFOP. 2009. The Shift to Learning Outcomes. Luxembourgh: Publication

Office of the European Union.
CEDEFOP. 2010. Development of National Qualifications Frameworks. Working
paper No. 12. http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/EN/Files/6108_en.pdf.
Fernie, S., N. Pilcher, and L. K. Smith. 2013. “The Scottish Credit and
Qualifications Framework: What’s Academic Practice Got to do with it?”
European Journal of Education 49: 233–248. doi:10.1111/ejed.12056.
Manzon, M. 2007. “Comparing Places.” In Comparative Education Research.
Approaches and Methods, edited by M. Bray, B. Adamson, and M. Mason,
85–122. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, The University
of Hong Kong.
Raffe, D. 2011. “The Role of Learning Outcomes in National Qualifications Frame-
works.” In Validierung Von Lernergebnissen – Recognition and Validation of
Prior Learning, edited by S. Bohlinger and G. Münchhausen, 87–104. Bonn:
Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung.
Ragin, C. C. 1987. The Comparative Method: Moving beyond Qualitative and
Quantitative Strategies. Berkley: University of California Press.
Young, M., and S. M. Allais, eds. 2013. Implementing National Qualifications
Frameworks across Five Continents. London: Routledge.

Klara Skubic Ermenc

University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
klara.skubic-ermenc@guest.arnes.si
© 2014, Klara Skubic Ermenc

As Klara Skubic Ermenc’s review of this volume has provided an extremely

thorough account of the contents and arguments contained in Young and
Allais’s book, what follows here seeks to locate the book within broader
research trends and debates, and discuss its ability to add to thinking upon
a number of questions within vocational education and training (VET). In
essence, the book can be viewed through three frames:
 Book reviews 7

(1) A narrowly focused take on the design and delivery of national qual-
ification frameworks (NQFs).
(2) Its potential contribution to illuminating thinking on the nature and
functioning of vocational qualifications (VQs) more generally.
(3) As part of a much wider body of research that sheds light on the
policy formation process.

On the first, as the other review makes clear, Young and Allais and their
contributors provide a clear and compelling account of many of the issues
that surround the creation of NQFs across a wide range of national settings.
One overall message would be that however problematic NQFs are to
design and assemble in the developed world, where they have a well-
established VET system to ‘scaffold’ their creation, the problems increase
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very considerably when NQFs and the thinking that underlies them are
exported to developing and third-world countries. It is also made very
apparent that people’s understanding of what NQFs are, and what their
functions might be, are by no means homogeneous. NQFs are contested
conceptual territory, however much many policy-makers might wish to deny
this. Moreover, insofar as the building blocks of an NQF are the qualifica-
tions that are to be inserted within its framework, in some countries the
blocks consist of little more than sand and wishful thinking.
In terms of the second area, if one wished to teach a course on the nat-
ure, design and usage of VQs, then three essential set texts for such a ven-
ture would be Young and Allais (2013), Brockmann, Clarke, and Winch
(2011), and Raggatt and Williams (1999). Between them, these landmark
pieces of research provide a valuable and fairly comprehensive account of
why in particular national policy settings (most obviously England/the UK),
the VQ design process can sometimes tend to default towards the ‘fail’ set-
ting, and why the interactions and feedback mechanisms between many
VQs and the labour market may produce sub-optimal outcomes for those
obtaining these qualifications, not least because they are far more complex
and conditional than policy-makers wish to believe.
At a deeper level, both Young and Allais’s (volume) and Brockmann,
Clarke, and Winch (2011) demonstrate how specific national conceptual,
philosophical, historical and regulatory backdrops can generate understand-
ings of what a VQ is, and is for, that are quite subtly but fundamentally
different – a finding that raises some large questions about purpose and mis-
sion of the European Qualifications Framework. At a superficial level, it gen-
erates equivalences among qualifications across different countries and labour
markets, but the meanings that might be attached to that ‘equivalence’ are
much more complex, nuanced and conditional than might appear at first sight.
In essence, it could be argued that there exists a spectrum of meanings
and understandings that can be attached to a VQ, and that at one end of the
 8 Book reviews

scale are a very complex set of data and signals that can be read in a multi-
tude of ways by different actors and stakeholders as they change and are
refracted through the varied lenses of the labour market, wage structure,
recruitment and selection process, labour market regulatory system, and
wider societal, cultural and historical norms. At the other end of the scale is
an administrative model whereby VQs are uncomplicated, static artefacts,
whose use-value is clear and easily determined and read off by all parties,
and which can hence be differentiated and assigned to levels much as pack-
ages are slotted into pigeonholes by a postal clerk. Research suggests the
former viewpoint is closer to reality than the latter, but that many
policy-makers tenaciously hold on to a belief that the world needs to be
kept simple, even at the cost of creating a model that bears only passing
acquaintanceship with real life, with the complex design and nature of qual-
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ifications, and with how various actors choose to use those qualifications.
Some NQFs have been designed as a very rigid construct, suggesting that
complexity and ambiguity have been downplayed. Others, as David Raffe’s
chapter on the Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework demonstrates,
have been allowed to be more flexible and their development more
incremental in nature, in part because of a stronger appreciation of the
underlying complexity of both what is being put inside the framework, but
also what it is that the framework is supposed to be trying to achieve.
This brings us to the third way of framing this volume – its contribution
to our wider understanding of the VET policy process. Young and Allais
note in their introduction to the volume that ‘we still have less than ade-
quate ways of conceptualising the role of qualifications in educational
reform’ (2013, 5). That said, their book, alongside Brockmann, Clarke, and
Winch (2011) and Raggatt and Williams (1999), provides a useful starting
point for exploration of educational reform in general, and also the often
supposedly transformative role that qualification reform and allied policies
are often assigned within this field.
One way of conceiving of the issue is to view the problem from the
position of a national policy-maker, particularly one operating within the
relatively de-regulated and voluntarist labour market environment of an
Anglo-Saxon country. Policy-makers have large aspirations, in terms of both
the economic and social policy goals that they have assigned to education
and training policies. In particular, they are often desirous of catalysing
greater investment in skills in the belief that this will produce a direct
improvement in economic outcomes (e.g. higher productivity, innovation
and wages). Leaving aside the question of whether there is any very simple
direct link between the supply of more skills and enhanced economic
performance, a key question is always how to gain traction on the invest-
ment decisions of employers and individuals.
In England, the two main means have been state-funded ‘super-schemes’
aimed at gaps created by market failure and bringing people up to a level
 Book reviews 9

where their own further investment in skill starts to make sense (e.g. the
Train to Gain scheme), and ‘policy technologies’ (e.g. the development of
National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), skills forecasting and planning
systems (Keep 2002), and NQFs). A considerable part of the English policy
discourse over the last 30 years has revolved around episodes of strong
belief in the efficacy of various policy technologies to deliver sweeping
change across the VET system. These technologies reflect a technocratic
model of policy problem resolution, whereby new planning mechanisms or
forms of certification arrangements can produce transformative effects by
making visible that which was previously invisible or obscure; by providing
simple, uniform ways of valuing things; and by reducing the transaction
costs required in information exchange, in other words tackling the market
failure that it is believed is caused by information deficits.
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Policy technologies are problematic on a number of different levels. One

major difficulty is the strong incentives on policy entrepreneurs to ‘oversell’
what their technology might achieve in order to secure official support. As
Young and Allais and their contributors demonstrate, the advocates of both
NVQs and then the NQF made ‘transformative’ claims for their proposals,
arguing that their technology would change conceptualisations, attitudes,
incentives and behaviours, and increase levels of investment, portability,
mobility and progression in positive ways. Moreover, once adopted, there
are then strong incentives to load new objectives and purposes onto the
technology, as it become a ‘get-out-of-gaol-free’ card whereby policy-
makers with a problem on their desk ‘solve’ the problem via the new tech-
nology. In some senses, the policy technology therefore comes to act as a
vehicle or platform onto which more and more expectations are loaded.
Both tendencies help support the enthusiasm for simple, blanket, one-
size-fits-all models of policy design and intervention.
Once a technology has been adopted, ‘lock-in’ rapidly occurs, options
vanish, reflexivity and genuine assessment and monitoring are ditched, frag-
ments of positive/supportive evidence are gathered and foregrounded, and
negative or counter-factual evidence is relegated to the periphery or
rubbished. In some cases, NVQs being a prime example, the (pre-ordained)
success of the ‘reform’ becomes an article of faith. Evangelical sermons are
preached, disciples are recruited and critics branded as heretics or unbelievers.
One particularly important element of many of the technologies deployed
in England in recent times, and one which underlies many of the problems
that contributors to Young and Allais point to, has been a persistent belief
that employers are keen to, and capable of, getting heavily involved in the
design and implementation of the technology. In reality, the capacity and
enthusiasm of employers varies considerably, and a great deal of VQ reform
– whether of qualifications themselves or of the frameworks within which
they are meant to be positioned – has failed, totally or partially, because
employers did not deliver the goods.
 10 Book reviews

These issues seem highly pertinent when we are now embarked on yet
another fundamental ‘reform’ of English VQs, this time at the behest of the
Whitehead Review of Adult Vocational Qualifications (2013). The Review
claims to have adopted a ‘systems engineering methodology’, which cer-
tainly fits neatly within the tradition of policy technologies, but shows little
if any cognisance of either the complex and contested nature of VQs, or of
what research could tell us about why previous attempts at reform have
failed. As a result, a familiar list of desired outcomes is paraded before us –
‘thinning out the VQ ‘jungle’, a healthier and more transparent VQ market,
putting employers in the driving seat when it comes to VQ design, develop-
ing clearer and simpler national occupational standards, and the delivery of
rigorous and relevant qualifications. Overall, the aim is to ‘develop and deli-
ver the vocational qualifications that drive business growth and productivity’
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(2013, 5). We have been here before, and come away empty handed, for
reasons that VQ researchers, and anyone who chooses to read and under-
stand their work, are now well aware of.
As with so many other aspects of VET policy, this fundamental disconnect
between research and policy helps drive the cycle of policy failure that the
Young and Allais volume points to. The problem is less one of simple igno-
rance than of policy-makers’ need to believe that quick, easy and simple solu-
tions to highly complex problems are freely available. Research tells a very
different, much more complicated, conditional and nuanced story, and it is
not one that a lot of those who superintend VET systems are all that anxious
to hear. For as long as they decline to listen, many of the issues underscored
by Young, Allais and their contributors will continue to pertain.

References
Brockmann, M., L. Clarke, and C. Winch, eds. 2011. Knowledge, Skills and Com-
petence in the European Labour Market – What’s in a Vocational Qualification.
Abingdon: Routledge.
Keep, E. 2002. “The English VET Policy Debate – Fragile ‘Technologies’ or Open-
ing the ‘Black Box’ Two Competing Visions of Where we Go Next.” Journal
of Education and Work 15 (4): 457–479.
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Ewart Keep
University of Oxford, UK
ewart.keep@education.ox.ac.uk
© 2014, Ewart Keep

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