Over the next few years there are going to be some big changes to vocational and work-related qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. These will help you gain skills and qualifications that employers want and support your personal and career development.  The biggest change is the introduction of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF).

What is the QCF?

The QCF is the new framework for creating and accrediting qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It's at the heart of a major reform of the vocational qualifications system, which will become simpler to understand and use, more accessible to a wider range of learners, and more relevant to learners’ and employers' needs.

• The QCF recognises small steps of learning and enables you to build up your learning at your own pace and put them towards a full qualification.
• You can bank all your achievements over time so you don't have to study anything you already know.
• And all your learning will be stored in your own personal learning record that you can build up as you progress

How will it work?

Every unit and qualification in the QCF has a credit value that tells you how long it takes to complete - one credit represents 10 hours' work. Each unit and qualification also has its own level, between Entry level and level 8, to show how difficult it is.

What are the benefits of the QCF?

For learners the QCF:

• enables them to use their learning and achievement towards recognised qualifications that meet industry needs
• allows them to build up all their learning towards units and qualifications, and avoid repeating what they’ve already learnt
• lets them complete units at a pace and in a way that fits around their home and work lives
• makes it easy to compare how hard each qualification is and how much work it involves
• has smaller steps of learning that make it possible to take new paths to success, either by progressing further with a skill or by changing direction and putting the learning to a new use.

When is it happening?

It’s expected that all accredited vocational qualifications will be on the QCF by the end of 2010.

Further information: