Last updated: 28 Aug 2008

A summary of evidence on national and international credit frameworks

There is a lot of work going on in the world on qualifications frameworks, especially in Europe. Four in five countries will soon have a national framework. Yet there is little work on developing credit frameworks.

In the UK we have had frameworks for many years. Developing these into credit frameworks seems a natural step.

A new approach to credit

The Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) has some innovative features and the combination of these features makes the model unique. Its proposal is one of bottom-up development of national qualifications through the combination of units according to standardised rules.

The sharing of units across different qualifications is not common practice. The traditional approach is one of specifications of modules of learning and units of assessment based on existing whole qualifications. Credits, credit values and the use of learning outcomes are therefore unfamiliar to much of the world. However, integration of these tools into general education, vocational education and training (VET) and higher education (HE) is increasing. This is partly due to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) for HE. A VET equivalent (ECVET) is now at the proposal stage and is therefore less well known.

Recognising achievement

The QCF architecture has built-in flexibility to accommodate all learning, from the main education sectors to informal learning from experience. Another feature is the process of setting 'system rules' for others to use. This can include, for example, unit-writing templates that allow levels, learning outcomes and credit values to be defined.

A world-leading web-based accreditation and learner database is an integral part of the credit framework. Its use is also now being considered in Flanders and exchanges have taken place between Belgium in relation to this.

The potential scale of implementation across England, Wales and Northern Ireland is large and, as is often the case, implementation of reforms becomes more difficult as the population increases. This distinguishes the QCF from other local, regional and national credit framework developments.

Learning from international experience

As part of the interim evaluation of the QCF a review of the international evidence on other countries' experiences of developing and implementing credit frameworks was carried out. A summary of the evidence can be downloaded from the right-hand side of this page.

The summary highlights many characteristics that the QCF shares with other national frameworks that aim to improve recognition of qualifications, and to ease mobility within education and the labour market and between countries and communities.