regulators and other associated technical experts practitioners) to formally codify their workplace requirements in the form of national occupational skills standards (NOSS), aligned in most instances to an approved or developing national qualifications framework (NQF), and underpinned by national occupational profiles that are linked to the well-recognised and established International Standards Classification of Occupations (ISCO) and International Standards Industry Classification (ISIC) systems.
NOSS are increasingly used across many parts of the world as the critical mechanism for bridging the growing gap between workplace learning, technology and innovation with old economy institutions of education and training. The latter have often been found to have been unable to keep up their training outcomes and training provision with the pace of change in the workplace, nor reflected such in occupational competence and currency of their teachers/trainers. Often, they have relied on employing highly educated theoretical subject matter experts as teachers, who have little experience, workplace competence or currency in the occupational area they are teaching.
Thus, the NOSS have often been introduced as the preferred medium for recognising, via formal assessments by a recognised and licensed organization (e.g. VET provider or employer), competent performance of individuals leading to the issuance of a national qualification related to their respective work, by the licensed organization. For the country they act as a mechanism for tooling up and measuring a nation’s human capital. For organizations, they are used in their human resources, recruitment, re-skilling and retention policies, processes and practices.
The introduction of these international and national occupational and industry classification and standards systems have often coincided with the establishment of a national qualifications framework (NQF) in a country augmented by regulatory arrangements that formally recognise national qualifications aligned to the approved framework, and based on NOSS. These national qualifications are classified into a framework of learning outcomes comprised of hierarchical levels of complexity and competence, and on achievement by an individual, a national qualification issued by a licensed organization.
These national frameworks too, are often aligned to an emerging series of international meta-frameworks such as the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and soon to be completed GCC meta-qualifications framework. The advent of these qualifications frameworks, gives rise to a publicly explicit base and central country reference tool for comparing, organizing and managing qualifications, and identifying their intended and interrelated outcomes with occupational skills requirements at an international, national, local and organizational level.
The introduction of NQFs and NOSS as explicit national outcome reference tools for relevant occupations is a blessing for organizations and employers. They now have at their disposal national benchmarking resources linked to international benchmarks, for which they can align their workforce career development and classifications systems to.
Important to note is that many countries have already introduced such national qualifications frameworks. They include all of the UK countries, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland. They introduced them as a lead mechanism to reform their education and training systems and enhance international attractiveness and competitiveness of available skills in their country. In all, more than 50 countries have now in place or are proceeding to work towards implementing their NQF. Mos EU countries have developed national frameworks, or are in the process of doing so to ensure alignment with the emerging trend to develop ‘meta-frameworks’ that link national systems of qualifications, such as the European Qualifications Framework (EQF).
In the GCC region, the UAE recognised the imperative of establishing a national qualification framework, and has establishe d a ten (10) level qualifications framework, known as the QFEmirates. It is a singular, coherent qualifications framework covering higher education, vocational education and