The Government has put in place a new regulatory body to eliminate duplicate qualifications and simplify diploma and certificate level courses.
The New Zealand Qualifications Framework (NZQF), established in June this year, will provide useful information to students and employers and enable the latter to assess if potential employees had the requisite skills and knowledge.
Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said that the number of qualifications available in the tertiary sector had made it difficult for learners to select courses and for employers to assess the quality of qualifications.
“The qualifications review has been designed to cut back on the number of unused or duplicate qualifications and ensure they were more recognisable to potential students and employers,” he said.
NZQF has reportedly identified increasing proliferation of certificates and diplomas, with education providers and industry training organisations often developing duplicate qualifications.
According to Mr Joyce, there were 5937 registered qualifications in New Zealand in 2009, of which, 76% were certificates and diplomas.
“These were mostly in vocational areas. For example, there were 74 Hairdressing and 96 Tourism Studies Certificates,” he said.
NZQF introduced a new feature, which assigns every qualification a status of ‘current, expiring or discontinued,’ which led to a decrease of 15% in the number of qualifications.
“The tertiary education sector determined how the framework will work through extensive consultations,” Mr Joyce said.
The New Zealand Qualifications Framework
Key features
A Graduate Profile for all qualifications, outlining the knowledge, skills and attributes of a graduate, as well as further education and employment pathways.
A new pre-development approval stage to ensure new qualifications do not duplicate existing ones.
Simplified qualification titles with the use of “New Zealand” in titles retained
Education providers and standard-setting bodies such as industry training organisations to formally consult each other when developing qualifications.
