TThhee NNaattiioonnaall QQuuaalliiffiiccaattiioonnss FFrraammeewwoorrkk ffoorr HHiigghheerr EEdduuccaattiioonn::

aa ffiirrsstt rreeaaddeerr

CCHHEETT,, AAddaammaassttoorr TTrruusstt,, AAccaaddeemmiicc PPllaannnniinngg UUnniitt ((UUWWCC)) JJuunnee 11999988

Report on a workshop sponsored jointly by the Centre for Higher Education

Transformation (CHET), the Adamastor Trust and the Academic Planning Unit at

the University of Western Cape.

CCOONNTTEENNTT PPAAGGEE 1. Workshop Invitation and Programme 2 2. Background “Questions and Answers”

Wieland Gevers 4

3. Issues for Higher Education Wieland Gevers 28

4. Workshop Report Joe Muller and Mignonne Breier 33

5. Outcome of SAQA meeting (12 August 1998) with respect to the registration of qualifications Wieland Gevers 45

2

The Adamastor Trust, The Academic Planning Unit (UWC),

In association with the Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET)

INVITES YOU TO ATTEND A

Workshop on Higher Education Qualifications in Relation to the NQF UWC, 17 June 1998

The SAQA Act No. 58 of 1995 created SAQA, which is required to establish a National Qualifications Framework (NQF) for all levels and categories of education and training in South Africa, including the degrees and diplomas offered by Universities and Technikons. The "basic theory" of NQF's requires that a large number of nationally standardised "units of learning" (called unit standards) are agreed upon in an educational/training system, which are used in various rules of combination to create nationally standardised qualifications. To date, no country has "succeeded" in creating a unit standard-based higher education subsystem next to the practically much more amenable further education subsystem. In one instance (New Zealand), a five-year stand-off has lead to proposals (not yet implemented) for a "hybrid" but still unitary NQF consisting of qualifications based solely on unit standards, others available both with and without unit standards, and yet others existing solely as "whole qualifications". SAQA has now accepted, a similar approach, in principle, hoping that University and Technikon qualifications, which have been "NQF-ISED" but without unit standards, will become part of the South African NQF on this basis. The Workshop will focus, through detailed discussion of case studies drawn from at least three areas where reasonably advanced development of new qualifications has taken place, on the educational and logistic issues which are raised by the evolving hybrid NQF model that will be applicable in Higher Education. Will "whole qualifications" have to be nationally standardised? Will the courses and modules making up "whole qualifications" have to be "semi-unitised" for the NQF to work? Will qualifications have to contain at least some unit standards? How will Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) mechanisms help in articulation? Because the recently constituted NSB's will in the near future be considering proposals from soon-to-be-recognised SGB's for qualifications to be registered on the NQF, both in terms of interim registration (after "recording") and full registration, there is an urgent need to develop a clearer understanding of whether and, if so, how, the NQF can be made to work to good overall beneficial effect, in University and Technikon education. The workshop, which will be the first of a series planned around the NQF, Programme Development and Curriculum Restructuring, will be mainly Western Cape based, with participation from other higher education institutions who have expressed interest and members of SAQA. Attached is a programme. PROFESSOR WIELAND GEVERS Conference Convenor SAUVCA Representative on SAQA

3

PROGRAMME TUESDAY 16 JUNE (19H00)

VENUE: UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN Senate Room, Bremner Building (Admin Building), Lower Campus, Lover's Walk, Rondebosch WELCOME AND SNACKS Wieland Gevers (UCT) Jim Leatt (Adamastor Trust) WEDNESDAY, 17 JUNE (09H00) VENUE: UNIVERSITY OF THE WESTERN CAPE Senate Hall (situated near entrance to UWC), Modderdam Road, Bellville Chair: Narend Baijnath (UWC) 09h00 Status / Issues and Debates on Higher Education

Qualifications and the National Qualification Framework Wieland Gevers

Short clarificatory discussion

10h30 - 11h00 Tea 11h00 - 13h00 Examples of New Qualification Development Engineering: Robbie Reynecke (Engineering Council) Accountancy: Chantal Mulder (SA Institute Chartered

Accountants) Teacher Education: Ben Parker (University of Natal /

Department of Education) Michael Cross (Wits University / Department of Education)

13h00 - 14h00 Lunch Chair: Nico Cloete (CHET) 14h15 - 16h00 Plenary Discussion: Practice and Issues

How to Achieve the Objectives of the NQF at Universities and Technikons

16h15 Closure

4

University and Technikon Qualifications in Relation to the NQF: Background "Question-and-Answer" Paper

By Wieland Gevers

(SAUVCA Representative on SAQA; Member: QPU Management Board; Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, UCT)

27 MAY 1998

This Paper is designed to provide answers to the most frequently asked questions relating to the present and (likely) future situation regarding Qualifications offered by Universities and Technikons; readers will inter alia be able to prepare themselves for the Workshop on this topic to be offered by the Adamastor Trust, APC (UWC) and CHET, on 17 June 1998 at UWC. QUESTION 1: What did the NCHE Report of 1996 say about Qualifications to be offered in Higher Education? ATTACHMENT 1 The boundaries of higher education The Commission's first general term of reference is to advise the Minister of Education on what constitutes higher education. In this section the Commission focuses on this question, and in particular on whether a new definition should focus on the nature of programmes offered, or on types of institutions. Higher education has traditionally been defined by its role in the constitution, generation and dissemination of higher knowledge. In more concrete terms this role, for a modem higher education system, translates into a broad range of functions: constitution of the realm of higher knowledge by sustaining scholarly and scientific practices, the generation of higher knowledge through research activities across a spectrum from discipline-driven research through strategic research, applied or applications-driven research to product-related research, and the dissemination of higher knowledge through systematic programmes of teaching and training, including continuing education and other forms of community service.

The objectives of higher education are not different in their essential character from those of other levels of education. Education must always add value permanently to learners, stimulate curiosity. Foster a spirit of critical inquiry and impart skills. Higher education simply requires more detail, greater depth of insight and more intellectual mastery than do other levels of education. Higher education, however, is unique in the aspiration that learners should be in regular contact with scholars who are adding to the store of knowledge in particular disciplines, and whose ability

5

to do so is enhanced by their teaching. While this aspiration is seldom realised in all parts of a higher education system, particularly one where participation rates are high, research remains a key constituent of higher education systems. The provision of higher education to talented students, however, remains the predominant function of all hi-her education systems, and typically constitutes the base from which research and extension, education and training in the learned professions and academic leadership in general are made possible. Traditionally qualifications rather than the mere completion and accumulation of discrete units of education are visible features of the higher educational continuum. They allow rigor, concentration and coherence to be built into the phases of learning, and ensure that integration as well as the advancement of learner's know- ledge takes place. The sequential learning activities leading to the award of particular qualifications can be called programmes. These are almost invariably trans-, inter- or multidisciplinary, and can be transinstitutional as well. (All programmes have a broad area of specialisation and it is possible to use wider or narrower definitions of programmes for specific purposes.) The demands of the future and the situation of South Africa as a developing country require that programmes, while necessarily diverse, should be educationally transformative. Thus they should be planned, coherent and integrated; they should be value adding, building contextually on learners' existing frames of reference; they should be learner-centred, experiential and outcomes-oriented; they should develop attitudes of critical inquiry and powers of analysis; and they should prepare students-for continued learning in a world of technological and cultural change. The higher education system in South Africa functions in a country which is passing through a national transition of international, historical significance. This means that language development on the part of students entails achieving both a firm command of English for academic and professional purposes, while allowing space for intellectual expression in other national, continental and world languages, exploring the richness of multilingualism, and equipping students to work primarily in South Africa and other African countries but also in the wider world. Programmes should, wherever possible, emphasise the scholarly exploration of African themes, problems and situations. It is, nevertheless, vital that the qualifications obtained in South African higher education should be internationally recognised. (The question of language and higher education is explored more fully in Appendix 10. 10.3.) Educational activities in a higher education system can best be planned, operated and maintained as defined programmes leading to the acquisition of generic qualifications in different fields. While such programmes predominate in volume of activity, they do not represent all the functions of higher education (such as scholarship and research). They do, however, provide a clear means of reducing the potential chaos of an unlimited number of courses and qualifications to a form compatible with systemwide planning, goal-directed funding and effective quality assurance. (The term ‘programme' should be 'instructional programme' as higher

6

education also encompasses research programmes and continuing education programmes. For ease of reference, the shortened form has been used.) The wide array of higher education programmes makes the boundaries of higher education difficult to define. So do conceptions of lifelong learning, the recognition of prior learning and articulation and transfer between further and higher education. All presuppose a continuum of learning which makes it extremely difficult to draw hard boundaries around higher learning, without suggesting that it has, or should have, an impermeable boundary around it. In view of the fact that the major function of higher education is to provide learning programmes that lead to the award of a qualification, the Commission proposes a programme-based definition of higher education. This definition of higher education will not be exhaustive of all higher education functions (it excludes research, continuing education and general scholarly activities), but will provide a clear means of delimiting the boundary between higher education programmes and other levels of education. It is also clear that higher education progammes that lead to the award of a qualification are not the only site of ‘higher learning’ which occurs increasingly in home and work environments as society becomes more information intensive. The development of the NQF and the more systematic recognition of prior learning by higher education institutions are both responses to this phenomenon. In it’s definition of higher education programmes, the Commission has sought to emphasize levels of learning rather than the nature of the institutions offering the programme. Traditionally in South Africa, tertiary of higher education has been regarded as the exclusive domain of universities and technikons, while other institutions offering post-school leaving certificates programmes have been seen as offering post-secondary education. The interim constitution mirrored this approach in delimiting the respective educational functions of the national and provincial legislatures on the basis of institutions. Thus ‘universities and technikons’ were identified as national responsibilities, while all other education was to be a concurrent national/provincial responsibility. South Africa’s new 1996 constitution contains an altered provision for delimiting educational responsibilities. ‘Tertiary education’ has replaced ‘universities and technikons’ as the basis for the distribution of provincial and national educational functions. While the Commission would have preferred the consistent use of the term ‘higher education’, the change is in line with submissions made to the Constitutional Assembly by the Commission and, more importantly, with the emerging approach to educational levels and qualifications being developed in the context of the NQF. The development of the NQF is the responsibility of SAQA established by the SAQA Act of 1995. While the NQF has not yet been formally developed or approved, preliminary work envisages a set of education and training levels across three broad bands: general, further and higher education and training, as set out in Figure 1.

7

While the nature of the incorporation of higher education into SAQA and the NQF will be discussed later in this chapter, what is important about the envisaged NQF as illustrated in Figure I is the provisional definition of higher education as learning beyond the proposed further education certificate, which will be at the level of the current Standard 10 certificate. The vision of a range of institutions offering qualifications at particular levels, and of particular institutions offering qualifications at multiple levels, reinforces the need for a programme and not institutional definition of higher education. The Commission adopted this approach in its initial definition of higher education in April 1995: higher education should consist of all learning programmes leading to qualifications that represent a level of learning which is higher than the proposed further education certificate on the NQF or the current Standard 10 certificate. The Commission remains convinced that this is the appropriate approach. This definition however has important implications for the size and scope of the new higher education system proposed by the Commission. In many countries and in the current South African distinction between tertiary and other forms of post-secondary education, there is provision for a form of post-school education that is pre-higher education. The Commission and the proposed NQF advocate a more inclusive and broader definition of higher education than has hitherto applied in South Africa, and than applies in many other countries.

8

Figure 1: Possible structure of the National Qualifications Framework

NQF level

Band Types of Qualification and Certificates

Locations of Learning for units and qualifications

8 Higher

Doctorates Further Research degrees

Tertiary / Research Professional institutions

7 Education

Higher Degrees

Tertiary / Research

Professional Qualifications Professional institutions 6 First Degrees

Higher Diplomas

And Training

Universities / Technikons / Colleges / Private / Professional institutions

5 Band

Diplomas, Occupational Certificates

Universities / Technikons Colleges / Private / Professional institutions / Workplace / etc

Further Education and Training Certificate 4 Further

education School/College/Trade Certificates Mix of units from all

Formal High schools

Technically Community/ Police/

RDP and Labour Market

3 and Training

School/College/Trade Certificates Mix of units from all

/Private /State schools

Nursing/ private colleges

schemes, Industry Training

2 Band School/College/Trade Certificates Mix of units from all

Boards, union, work- place, etc.

1 General Education and Training Certificates

General

Std 7/Grd 9 (10 years)

ABET Level 4 Formal Schools

Occupation /Work- based

NGOs/ Churches /Night

Education

Std 5/Grd 7 (8 years)

ABET Level 3 (Urban/ Rural/ Farm/

training /RDP/ Labour

schools /ABET program

and Training

Std 3/ Grd 5 (6 years)

ABET Level 2 Special) Market schemes/ Upliftment

mes/ private providers

Band

Std 1/Grd 3 (4 years)

ABET Level 1 program-mes/ Community

/Industry Training Boards/

1 year Reception

Program- Mes

work place, etc.

Source: Ways of Seeing the National Qualifications Framework, HSRC, Pretoria, 1995

9

ATTACHMENT 2 6.4.2 A single higher education qualifications framework The strategy for transforming the hi-her education system, the ability of the new system to meet a wider range of needs and an understanding of the boundaries between higher and other levels of education all rely heavily on the notion of higher education programmes. It is essential that such programmes are offered within a coherent qualifications framework. Universities and technikons currently offer programmes that lead towards qualifications regulated by two parallel qualification frameworks, while colleges offer only certificates and diplomas. Separate frameworks have contributed to low levels of articulation and transfer, and to the impermeability of the boundaries between sectors. A new higher education system requires a single qualifications framework to enhance mobility and progression and to allow much greater flexibility in the design of qualifications in particular fields. The new higher education-qualifications framework should be an important part of the NQF to be developed by SAQA, where it can be conceived of as spanning the proposed levels 5 to 8 on the NQF. The Commission has considered designing a new qualifications framework. Some of the innovations that have been suggested are: Changing from the present three-year to a standard four-year formative

bachelor’s degree. Offering, an identically titled qualification at different exit levels.

The possible abolition of the honors degree.

The introduction of a two-year general formative higher education diploma.

The restructuring of masters degrees as two-year programmes with an

advanced diploma exit qualification after one year. The Commission favours a more flexible approach to minimum periods of study for particular qualifications. The use of 'three-year' degrees etc is for ease of reference. All the above suggestions are complex and have significant implications when generalised across all subject fields. The Commission is not in a position to make a firm proposal for a concrete new framework or on the suggestions above. However, it believes this is a high priority and a prerequisite for incorporating hi-her education into the NQF It is clear that a single framework will require a good deal of realignment and adjustment of existing qualifications. The new framework- should be premised on the notion of a laddered set of qualifications at higher education certificate, diploma and degree levels. All such qualification titles should be

10

recognised in terms of the SAQA Act and should be designed separately in each proposed field of the NQF. The SAQA Act envisages the establishment of a number of National Standards Bodies (NSBS) which will be responsible for establishing standards and qualifications in their fields. The Commission expects that the precise nature of the single articulated qualification ladder will vary by field, but stresses the need to ensure a common qualifications 'currency' across all fields. Thus, an advanced diploma might not feature in all qualifications ladders, but should be at the same NQF level in each field where it does. (It is also crucially important that the definitions of fields are harmonised across the many contexts in which they will be needed: NSBS, funding formula. higher education planning parameters, etc.) Two further aspects of higher education's relationship to a single qualifications framework and the NQF are important. Firstly, articulation, transfer and progression up qualifications ladders are limited not only by the current separate qualifications frameworks but the impermeability of multi-year degree and diploma programmes. The new framework should provide for exit qualifications within multi-year programmes. This has significant implications for curriculum design to preserve the coherence and value-addedness of both kinds of qualifications in such arrangements. Secondly, in Australia and New Zealand where national qualifications frameworks have been identified as a basis for bringing to-ether education and training, the hi-her education sector, and in particular the universities, have generally responded with reservations. This has arisen from three broad areas of concern: The concept of an NQF originated from the labour movement and is aimed at

improving human resource development, with the emphasis often on dealing, with inequalities in the workplace, including education and training opportunities. Higher education institutions perceive a possible drift towards vocationalism and undesirable standardisation arising from the application of prescriptive framework requirements.

There are also fears that rigid frameworks could have a negative impact on the

necessary diversity of higher education programmes. The characteristics of the proposed frameworks, with an emphasis on outcomes

are perceived to be overly reductionist and behaviorist, and generally antithetical to the goals and ethos of universities in particular.

It is clear that an emphasis on unit standard methodology and on the construction of qualifications from multiple units of learning is a highly con-tested issue within higher education. The time, cost and effort involved in reaching agreement on thousands of registrable standards at different NQF levels, with different credit values, must be compared with the benefits to be gained in the short to medium term.

11

A different approach, compatible with the inclusion of higher education in the NQF through the registration of whole qualifications at the relevant levels, consists of determining, at national or regional level, the bridging requirements between the different qualifications on the single framework. Such requirements could be acquired before transfer to the new programme or within the receiving programme by courses designed for this purpose. Many such articulation agreements already exist between individual institutions. While these tend to be ad hoc arrangements, involving different approaches in the absence of an agreed national framework, they could form the basis for national and regional agreements. Such agreements can be implemented rapidly and cheaply, making them an attractive option in the short to medium term while the NQF is being developed. The Commission believes there is a challenge to reconcile the goal of promoting coherent and integrated higher learning with the need to facilitate mobility through flexible entry and exit points. The solution to this apparent dilemma is to recognise that different subject fields have different structures of knowledge, which may or may not lend themselves to expression in unit standard terms. The SAQA Act provides for unit standards and qualifications to be registered on the NQF. The Commission believes that the alignment of hi-her education with the NQF will be best achieved by allowing each NSB to determine whether it wants an approach of registering whole qualifications, or an approach based on unit standards. In some fields the registration of qualifications only will be the most appropriate approach provided the need for intermediate qualifications is recognised. In the proposal that follows, and in the planning process suggested by the Commission, reference is made to the registration of programmes on the NQF. The Commission believes that this is essential, and is an example of the urgent need for detailed negotiation between SAQA and the higher education system, which appears to be using concepts such as 'qualification' and 'programme' in different ways. PROPOSAL 3: A single higher education qualifications framework a) A single qualifications framework should be developed for all higher education

qualifications, as part of the NQF. The framework should include intermediate exit qualifications within multiple-year qualifications and should consist of a laddered set of qualifications at higher education certificate, diploma and degree levels.

12

b) All higher education programmes should be registered on the NQF, at

minimum at the exit level of whole qualifications, with NSBs determining the appropriate form of registration in terms of the use of unit standards within qualifications. NSBs should also be charged with ensuring that a coherent laddered set of qualifications is developed and registered in each field, and should be responsible for developing effective articulation mechanisms between the different qualifications. It is vital that this be done in all professional fields where problems of articulation have often been most acute.

c) The Higher Education Council should ensure that the decisions taken by

SAQA and its NSBs on how the registration of qualifications is to occur provide an effective basis for incorporating higher education programmes into the NQF. The fields and levels should be compatible with the subject categories and levels used in the higher education information and planning systems.

d) Higher education programmes should be able to be registered as either

‘national' programmes offered by a number of providers (most technikon programmes, the N4 to N6 programmes, and the national resource-based learning programmes proposed later in this chapter will all fall into this category) or 'institutional' programmes that are relatively unique to the provider institution or partner institutions.

QUESTION 2: What did the White Paper on Higher Education Transformation of 1997 say about Qualifications? ATTACHMENT 3 2B No. 18207 GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 15 AUGUST 1997 2.4 The most significant conceptual change is that the single co-ordinated system will be premised on a programme-based definition of higher education: Higher education comprises all learning programmes leading to qualifications higher than the proposed Further Education and Training Certificate or the current Standard 10 certificate.

2.5 A programme-based approach

recognises that higher education takes place in a multiplicity of institutions

and sites of learning, using a variety of methods, and attracting an increasingly diverse body of learners

is fully compatible with all the functions and integral components of higher education, which include learning and teaching, scholarship and research, community development and extension services.

13

2.5 A programme-based higher education system which is planned, governed and funded as a single, coherent, national system will enable many necessary changes to be undertaken.

It will promote diversification of the access, curriculum and qualification

structure, with programmes developed and articulated within the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), encouraging an open and flexible system based on credit accumulation and multiple entry and exit points for learners. This will remove obstacles which unnecessarily limit learners' access to programmes, and enable proper academic recognition to be given for prior learning achieved, thus permitting greater horizontal and vertical mobility by learners in the higher education system. It would also break the grip of the traditional pattern of qualification based on sequential, year-long courses in single disciplines.

It will promote the development of a flexible learning system, progressively encompassing the entire higher education sector, with a diversity of institutional missions and programme mixes, a range of distant and face-to-face delivery mechanisms and support systems, using appropriate, cost-effective combinations of resource-based learning and teaching technologies.

It will improve the responsiveness of the higher education system to present and future social and economic needs, including labour market trends and opportunities, the new relations between education and work, and in particular, the curricular and methodological changes that flow from the information revolution, the implications for knowledge production and the types of skills and capabilities required to apply or develop the new technologies.

It will require a system-wide and institution-based planning process, and a responsive inquiry and funding system, which will enable planned goals and targets to be pursued. The process will ensure that the expansion of the system is responsibly managed and balanced in terms of the demand for access, the need for redress and diversification, the human resource requirements of the society and economy, and the limits of affordability and sustainability.

A QUALIFICATIONS FRAMEWORK FOR HIGHER EDUCATION 2.65 Separate and parallel qualification structures for universities, technikons and colleges have hindered articulation and transfer between institutions and programmes, both horizontally and vertically. The impermeability of multi-year degree and diploma programmes is a further obstacle to mobility and progression. This is clearly untenable in the light of the new NQF and the programme-based approach to higher education, which is premised on enhancing horizontal and vertical mobility through flexible entry and exit qualifications.

14

2.66 The Ministry endorses the principle that a single qualifications framework should be developed for all higher education qualifications in line with the NQF. In principle, the framework should comprise a laddered set of qualifications at higher education certificate, diploma and degree levels, including intermediate exit qualifications within mufti-year qualifications. In addition, all higher education programmes, national or institutional, should be registered on the NQF, minimally at the exit level of whole qualifications. 2.67 The incorporation of academic qualifications within a national framework is not a straightforward matter and, quite properly, it has been the subject of intense debate. SAQA has determined that both unit standards and whole qualifications may be presented for registration on the NQF. This should meet the serious concern among many academic staff that unit standard methodology, and the construction of qualifications from multiple units of learning, are inappropriate foundations for certain academic programmes. The Ministry is confident that other issues of concern to the higher education system in the development of the NQF can be satisfactorily resolved within the relevant SAQA structures. 2.68 The establishment of SAQA with the full and active participation of higher education providers was a milestone and puts the evolution of the NQF in South Africa in the forefront of such systems world-wide. QUESTION 3: What is the present dispensation with respect to "approved" Qualifications offered by Universities and Technikons? University Qualifications are approved for provision by the internal University authorities concerned; they are approved for purposes of subsidy, as part of the SAPSE reporting system, by the AUT according to the policy document NATED 02-116, last approved in updated form in 1997. This document is matched to the SAPSE system in providing a structural framework for University Qualifications with a minimum of content specification (both nature and amount), no quality parameters at all, and no limit to enrolment. (One of the changes in the updated 1997 version is that information is required when approval of a new Qualification is sought concerning the capacity of the provider to mount the proposed programme.) The current array of approved University Qualifications, with a Senior Certificate with matriculation exemption as entrance point, is as follows: University Diploma: Three years minimum of full-time study. Advanced University Diploma / Further Diploma in Education: One

year minimum of full-time study (post University or Education Diploma). Postgraduate Diploma: One year minimum of full-time study (post B-

Degree). Bachelors Degree: Three years minimum of full time study. (Advanced) Bachelor Degree: One year minimum of full-time study (post

B-Degree).

15

Honors Bachelor Degree: One year minimum of full-time study (post B-Degree).

Master’s Degree: One or two years minimum of full-time study (post B- or Hons-B-Degree).

Doctoral Degree: Two years minimum of full-time study (post B-, Hons-B or M-Degree).

Technikon qualifications are approved by the AUT (for purposes both of provision and subsidy) at a national (system) level, following the "designer Technikon" process, according to the -policy document, Report 150 (95/01). This document contains far more explicit "outcomes specifications" than does NATED 02-116, as well as fixed structural requirements, general aspects of content, a quality assurance system administered by SERTEC (a statutory body), and no limit to enrolments. The current hierarchy of Technikon instructional programmes, with a Senior Certificate or equivalent as a minimum admission requirement, is as follows: National Certificate: One year minimum full-time study. National Higher Certificate: Two years minimum of full-time study. National diploma: Three years minimum of full-time study. National Higher Diploma: Four years minimum of full-time study. Bachelor Degree in Technology: Four years minimum of full-time study. Master’s Degree in Technology: One year of tuition plus research, or

research only (post B.Tech. Degree). Doctor’s degree in Technology: Two years minimum of research (post

M.Tech Degree). It is a requirement that any of the programmes leading to the above exit levels must be so designed that the holder thereof will be able to be productive in the economy in some position or another. in terms of the policy contained in Report 150, the nature of Technikon instructional programmes is determined by two broad objectives. The first of these is that Technikons must support and guide students at the tertiary level towards greater maturity, and therefore every Technikon instructional programme and instructional offering should be at the tertiary educational level, and the composition and offering of instructional programmes and instructional offerings must take place in an educationally accountable manner. The second objective of Technikon programmes is that they must prepare people for a particular occupation or industry and must be oriented towards the practice, promotion and transfer of technology. Thus, instructional programmes must be aimed at meeting the needs of the vocation/industry concerned, and the greater part of Technikon instructional programmes must involve putting into practice existing knowledge, technology, results and formulas. The Qualification Structure for Technikons provides annual exit points but they are seldom used: it should be emphasised that the "Integrity and coherence" of 3-year National Diplomas is as great as that of 3-6 year degrees at

16

Universities, jealously protected by Professional Boards and the like. The large size of the "Qualification Unit" characteristic of formative Higher Education is thus found in the Technikon system as much as it is in the University system. A large number of programmes offered at Universities and Technikons are accredited in terms of provision and recognition by Professional Boards and Councils, some of them outside South Africa. The AUT still exists but does not meet; approvals of University qualifications is done by officials of the Department of Education according to the updated version of NATED 02-116. QUESTION 4: How will University and Technikon qualifications (likely) be approved after the CHE has been constituted, taking into account SAQA's development of the NQF machinery? The system will (likely) change dramatically. Qualifications registered on the ~NQF will exist either as "Whole Qualifications" (see below) or as Qualifications made up out of registered unit standards according to prescribed "rules of combination". Qualifications will not have to be registered on the NQF, but if not so registered wiII not be endorsed for their quality by SAQA through its ETQA system (see below) and the Department of Education may decide not to subsidise student places in programmes leading to such Qualifications (see below). Registered Qualifications will have been developed by SGB's working in sub-fields specified by the relevant NSB's (in one of the twelve fields of the NQF). They will, to be registered, have had to meet the outcomes-based specifications for NQF Qualifications (see below) and be considered to be good and useful Qualifications by the SGB's and NSB's concerned. Universities and Technikons will be accredited by ETQA's (or, via delegation, by other bodies which will usually be Professional Councils or Boards), both as having satisfactory overall quality assurance mechanisms in place (institutional audit) and as being able to offer specific registered Qualifications (programme accreditation). Institutions will (likely) make bids for particular numbers of student places in a "grid system" still to be developed; there will usually be more than one registered Qualification on offer in a single "hole" in the grid, and institutions will be able to enrol students (thus earning subsidy) up to global totals in each "hole", up to the allocation awarded for each year in a three-year rolling system (they can exceed the number, but will then earn fees only for the overshoot in each case).

17

Institutions will thus usually offer registered Qualifications which they are accredited to offer, but subsidy will be provided only for the total enrolment in a "hole" of the funding grid. QUESTION 5: Over the next few years, what will be meant by "a programme leading to a Qualification which is registered with SAQA"? From 1 July 1998, Qualifications (almost all of them "whole Qualifications") obtained by following programmes of study at Universities or Technikons will have one of the following different kinds of registration status: i) Recorded by SAQA in their existing form, but not registered on the

NQF (either in a particular field or at a particular level). ii) Registered on the NQF on an interim basis, if they have been

submitted (having previously been recorded, as above) via an NSB with NQF-aligned specifications such as field, level, specific and cross-field outcomes and articulation possibilities, etc.

iii) (Fully) registered on the ~NQF if they have been submitted via the full

SGB/NSB system, with NQF specifications which are still to be prescribed for whole Qualifications, or NQF specifications representing specified combinations of registered unit standards.

iv) Not recorded or registered by SAQA (voluntary option, see above). QUESTION 6: What will the "rules of the game" be when SGB's prepare Qualifications for NSB'S, with recommendations for their registration by SAQA on the NQF? The regulations issued by SAQA on 28 March 1998 under the SAQA Act are all-important in this area. They establish the NQF as having eight levels (Universities and Technikons will offer Qualifications from levels five to eight), for which the necessary level descriptors will be developed bottom-up in each field by the relevant NSB, for later harmonisation across the 12 fields and matching with international standards. The fields are specified in Chapter 2, paragraph 3 (4): (a) Field 01: Agriculture and Nature Conservation (b) Field 02: Culture and Arts (c) Field 03: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (d) Field 04: Communication Studies and Language (e) Field 05: Education, Training and Development (f) Field 06: Manufacturing, Engineering and Technology (g) Field 07: Human and Social Studies

18

(h) Field 08: Law 7 Military Science and Security (i) Field 09: Health Sciences and Social Services (j) Field 10: Physical, Mathematical, Computer and Life Sciences (k) Field 11: Services (l) Field 12: Physical Planning and Construction. The ways in which Qualifications will be constructed are described in paragraph 5 (1) (a-c): (a) Each National Standards Body contemplated in regulation 12 together

with each Standards Generating body contemplated in regulation 20 shall reach agreement on the level of each unit standard and standard submitted, on a scale of eight levels as envisaged in regulation 3, taking into account the way in which both the breadth and the depth of knowledge, skills and values in a specific sub-field have been advanced by learning, and the way in which one or more of the critical outcomes is seen to be a distinctive although contextual part of prescribed outcome of the unit standard concerned.

(b) The proposers of unit standards-based qualifications shall construct,

through appropriate rules of combination of selected unit standards registered at different levels, qualifications which have exit level outcomes that are a function both of the particular component standards used, and of a process of integrating the overall outcome, again considered as reflecting the extent (on a scale of 1 to 8 as contemplated in regulation 3) to which knowledge, skills and values in a sub-field have been acquired and the critical outcomes incorporated, into the assessable performance.

(c) The proposers of qualifications not based on unit standards shall

construct combinations of learning outcomes which have exit level outcomes that are a function of the most advanced outcomes included and of a process of integrating the overall outcome, considered as reflecting the extent (on a scale of 1 to 8 as contemplated in regulation 3), to which knowledge, skills and values in a sub-field have been acquired and the critical sub-field outcomes incorporated into the assessable performance as a whole."

Requirements for unit standards are described in paragraph 7, together with the critical cross-field outcomes mentioned above: these are effectively "key skills" that will apply more or less generally in all fields, irrespective of specific content and competencies attached to particular Qualifications:

A unit standard shall be formulated so as to be used as an assessor document, a learner's guide and an educator's guide for the preparation of learning material and shall consist of - (a) a unit standard title; (b) a logo indicating approval by the Authority; (c) a unit standard number;

19

(d) a unit standard level on the National Qualifications Framework; (e) the credit attached to the unit standard; (f) the field and sub-field of the unit standard; (g) the issue date; (h) the review date; (i) the purpose of the unit standard;

the learning assumed to be in place before this unit standard is commenced;

(k) the specific outcomes to be assessed; (l) the assessment criteria, including essential embedded

knowledge; (m) the accreditation process (including moderation) for the unit

standard; (n) the range statements as a general guide for the scope, context,

and level being used for this unit standard; and (o) a "notes" category which must include the critical outcomes

contemplated in regulation 7(2) supported by the unit standard; should include references to essential embedded knowledge if not addressed under assessment criteria and may include other supplementary information on the unit standard.

Critical outcomes contemplated in regulation 7(3) shall be embedded within a standard as specified in regulations 7(1): Provided that where such standard forms part of a qualification, those critical outcomes not included in the standard shall be embedded in the qualification. Critical outcomes include but are not limited to - (a) identifying and solving problems in which responses display that

responsible decision using critical and creative thinking have been made. (b) working effectively with others as a member of a team, group,

Organisation, community.

(c) organising and managing oneself and one's activities responsibly and effectively.

(d) collecting, analysing, organising and critically evaluating information.

(e) communicating effectively using visual, mathematical and/or language skills in the modes of oral and/or written persuasion.

(f) using science and technology effectively and critically, showing responsibility towards the environment and health of others.

(g) demonstrating an understanding of the world as a set of related systems by recognising that problem-solving contexts do not exist in isolation.

(h) contributing to the full personal development of each learner and the social and economic development of the society at large, by making it

20

the underlying intention of any programme of learning to make an individual aware of the importance of:

(i) reflecting on and exploring a variety of strategies to learn more

effectively; (ii) participating as responsible citizens in the life of local, national

and global communities; (iii) being culturally and aesthetically sensitive across a range of

social contexts; (iv) exploring education and career opportunities; and (v) developing entrepreneurial opportunities.

Paragraph 8 of the regulations provide the requirements that must be met for any particular proposed set of learning outcomes from a learning programme to become eligible to be accepted as a Qualification, as opposed to a collection of items bearing credit: it must – (a) represent a planned combination of learning outcomes which has a

defined purpose or purposes, and which is intended to provide qualifying learners with applied competence and a basis for further learning;

(b) add value to the qualifying learner in terms of enrichment of the person through the: provision of status, recognition, credentials and licensing; enhancement of marketability and employability; and opening-up of access routes to additional education and training;

(c) provide benefits to society and the economy through enhancing citizenship, increasing social and economic productivity, providing specifically skilled/professional people and transforming and redressing legacies of inequity;

(d) comply with the objectives of the National Qualifications Framework contained in section 2 of the Act;

(e) have both specific and critical cross-field outcomes which promote life-long learning;

(f) where applicable, be internationally comparable;

(g) incorporate integrated assessment appropriately to ensure that the

purpose of the qualification is achieved, and such assessment shall use a range of formative and summative assessment methods such as portfolios, simulations, work-place assessments, written and oral examinations; and

(h) indicate in the rules governing the award of the qualification that the

qualification may be achieved in whole or in part through the recognition of prior learning, which concept includes but is not limited to learning

21

outcomes achieved through formal, informal and non-formal learning and work experience.

A total of 120 (one hundred and twenty) or more credits shall be required for registration of -a qualification at levels 1 to 8, with a minimum of 72 (seventy-two) credits being obtained at or above the level at which the qualification is registered, and the number and levels of credits constituting the balance (of forty-eight) shall be specified: Provided that a qualification consisting of less than 120 credits may be considered if it meets the requirements in regulation 8(1) and complies with the objectives of the National Qualifications Framework contained in section 2 of the Act. The Authority shall register a qualification according to the type and level which shall be determined on the basis of the total number and levels of credits required in accordance with the following criteria: (a) The Authority shall register a qualification as a National Certificate at

levels 1 to 8 where it has 120 (one hundred and twenty) or more credits with 72 (seventy-two) credits at or above the level at which the certificate is registered: Provided that where the Authority has considered and found that a qualification consisting of less than the minimum number of credits has met the requirements in regulation 8(1), the foregoing requirement is waived and the qualification registered as a National Certificate.

(b) The Authority shall register a qualification as a National Diploma where

it has a minimum of 240 (two hundred and forty) credits, of which at least 72 (seventy-two) credits shall be at level 5 or above.

(c) The Authority shall register a qualification as a National First Degree

where it has a minimum of 360 (three hundred and sixty) credits of which at least 72 (seventy-two) credits shall be at level 6 or above.

The Authority shall also register whole qualifications (not constructed from unit standards) which meet the minimum requirements specified in regulation 11(1)(c) in addition to the requirements of regulations 8(1), 8(2), 8(3) and regulation 9. The Authority shall upon registration describe each qualification by type, level, number of credits and a title specifying its primary purpose." The credit system of the NQF is also introduced in this paragraph (having, being defined in Chapter 1 under "Definitions") as a value assigned by SAQA to "ten notional hours of learning". Paragraph 9 also has an important section on credits needed for qualifications in the Higher Education band:

"In addition, for registration at levels 5 to 8 the number of credits required for Fundamental, Core and Elective learning shall be

22

specified, which number of credits shall be appropriate to the qualification for which registration is sought: Provided that the Authority may require that the reasons for the number and distribution of credits be provided."

(Note that definitions for "fundamental learning", "core learning" and "elective learning" are provided in Chapter 1, as follows: "fundamental learning" means that learning which forms the grounding or basis needed to undertake the education, training or further learning required in the obtaining of a qualification and "fundamental" has a corresponding meaning; “core learning" means that compulsory learning required in situations contextually relevant to the particular qualification, and "core" has a corresponding meaning; “elective learning" means a selection of additional credits at the level of the National Qualifications Framework specified, from which a choice may be made to ensure that the purpose of the qualification is achieved, and "elective" has a corresponding meaning. NSB'S, established as integral parts of SAQA (i.e. as sub-committees) will have up to 36 members (required to have appropriate experience and skills) drawn from six categories of national stakeholder bodies (state, business, labour, providers, critical interest groups and community/learner bodies). NSB's will:

(a) define and recommend to the Authority the boundaries of the discrete field for which it is constituted, by the value added by the field including but not limited to process, product or service, related to other fields;

(b) define and recommend to the Authority a framework of sub-fields to be

used as a guide for the recognition and/or establishment of Standards Generating Bodies;

(c) recognise and/or establish Standards Generating Bodies within the framework of sub-fields, or withdraw or rebind such recognition or establishment;

(d) ensure that the work of Standards Generating Bodies meets the requirements of the registration of standards and qualifications as determined by the Authority;

(e) recommend the registration of standards on the National Qualifications Framework to the Authority;

(f) recommend the registration of qualifications to the Authority;

23

(g) update and review qualifications;

(h) liaise with Education and Training Quality Assurance bodies regarding the procedures for recommending new standards and qualifications, or amending registered standards and qualifications;

(i) define requirements and mechanisms of moderation to be applied across Education and Training Quality Assurance bodies;

(j) appoint office-bearers, such committees and members of committees as required to carry out the functions designated, in consultation with the Authority; and

(k) perform such other functions as may from time-to-time be delegated by the Authority."

In performing the functions referred to in regulation 19(1), a National Standards Body shall - (a) abide by the decisions of the Authority relating to the development and

implementation of the National Qualifications Framework;

(b) consult with experts in the defined field concerning the accuracy and acceptability of the results of such activities and sub etc such results to their scrutiny;

(c) publish the results of such activities in the Government Gazette for comment by interest parties; and

(d) ensure that the results of such activities are subjected to the scrutiny of the Reference Grouping contemplated in regulation 17, prior to submission to the Authority."

SGB's will be recognised or established for each sub-field accepted by SAQA within each of the 12 fields. Setting up the sub-fields will require that an NSB shall (a) determine the purpose of the definition of the field and analyse its

content; (b) define the boundaries of discrete fields by the value added by the field

including but not restricted to process, product or service related to other fields;

(c) identify traditional and non-traditional areas of study, occupational

categories, technology and environment associated with the field; (d) project or forecast the linkage between the field and the national

economy 3, 5 and 10 years hence, including but not limited to predicting whether the field is likely to grow, shrink or become obsolete,

24

what its importance to the economy is likely to be and in what way it is likely to change;

(e) attempt to ensure by independent assessment, that the field as defined

is complete; (f) identify discrete sub-fields by analysing the value-added component; (g) identify the impact of existing and proposed legislation on fields,

subfields and levels, and plan accordingly; and (h) prepare a business plan for developing the National Standards Body or

Standards Generating Body which includes outcomes, communication and marketing strategy, budget and time-line.

SGB's can apply for registration but must

(a) describe the consultation or negotiation process used in making the application and in ensuring that other potential applicants in the sub-field have been involved and support the submission or are willing to become co-applicants for recognition;

(b) provide supporting documentation supporting the application and the

definition of the sub-field for which application is made; and

(c) indicate the acceptance of a decision of the Authority as final and binding, after an appeal has formally been heard by the Authority.

SGB membership (of persons appropriately skilled and experienced) will be decided following nomination by organisations which are key education and training stakeholder interest groups, through a public consultation process, including preliminary publication in the Government Gazette. SGB's will (a) generate standards and qualifications in accordance with the Authority

requirements in identified sub-fields and levels;

(b) update and review standards;

(c) recommend standards and qualifications to National Standards Bodies; (d) recommend criteria for the registration of assessors and moderators or

moderating bodies; and

(e) perform such other functions as may from time-to-time be delegated by its National Standards Body.

In performing the functions referred to in regulation 24(1) a Standards Generating Body shall –

25

(a) abide by the decisions of the Authority relating to the development and

implementation of the National Qualifications framework;

(b) consult with experts in the defined field concerning the accuracy and acceptability of the results of such activities and subject such results to their scrutiny;

(c) publish the results of such activities in the Government Gazette for

comment by interested parties;

(d) ensure that the results of such activities are subjected to the scrutiny of the reference grouping contemplated in regulation 17, prior to submission to the Authority.

QUESTION 7: What are likely scenarios for SGB functioning in the initial phase of NSB “setting-up”? The Regulations promulgated by SAQA on 28 March 1998 require intensive top-down work by each NSB in determining the overall boundaries of its field and the most appropriate "system of sub-fields". One can expect the overall approach to be of a "lumping nature", with a tendency to prefer fewer rather than more sub-fields in order to simplify operations. Bottom-up attempts by groupings and organisations to designate themselves as the "occupiers" of potential sub-fields will, by contrast, tend to have a "splitting effect", tending to proliferation of large numbers of sub-fields to create space for perceived distinctions and differences and even to accommodate rivals. It is, nevertheless, clear that the need for recognition of an SGB (along with its sub-field needing to be established within the field concerned and accepted by the NSB as well as by SAQA itself), followed by formal registration, gives the top-down-NSB the effective upper hand in this tug-of-war (although the outcome may be more complicated in a consensus-seeking environment than one might otherwise expect). The prescribed processes for forming SGB's are time-consuming and have not yet started - they are unlikely to be generally in place before the year 2000. There may be many "Interim" situations during this time, just as the "NSB's" have functioned without legitimation, complete memberships or even regulations since the start of 1998. QUESTION 8: When will it become possible for unit standard-based Qualifications to be designed by SGB's and recommended to NSB’s and SAQA for registration?

26

It is important to understand that the designers of unit standard-based Qualifications will need a "bank" of available unit standards, at various levels and with varying credit values, with specific and critical cross-field outcomes, etc. The "bank" will also have to include standards registered in fields other than the particular field of a Qualification, as many of the complex Qualifications will require the inclusion of fundamental, core and elective standards from other fields. SGB's are likely to design as many new unit standards as they need for the particular Qualifications that they have in mind and are not able to mobilise from what is available when they start; they will usually requisition the standards that they cannot design themselves from other SGB's in order to complete the designs and prepare their Qualifications for recommendation to NSB'S. Activities on many fronts of this kind will lead to the proliferation of registered unit standards that can be used, ready-made, by SGB's starting their work at a later stage, and so on, until the day dawns when SGB's may find it possible to design new Qualifications by simply "shopping off the NQF Supermarket floor"(!) A likely scenario is that most unit standards-generating activity will be located at levels 2 to 4 (FET Band) as well as at levels 5 to 6 in the Higher Education band in certain fields where unit standards are considered appropriate and desirable. QUESTION 9: What will SGB's and NSB's do with "whole Qualifications" such as those presently offered by Universities and Technikons, when these are submitted by individual institutions, by groups of institutions agreeing to co-operate, or by entire categories of institutions (eg. all Technikons)? This is the most opaque part of any future scenario for Qualifications in South Africa. The transition from the structural (and generic) Qualification structure for Universities contained in NATED 02-116, to the NQF registration of "whole Qualifications" with particular outcomes and other design features, will be very difficult in many cases. The easiest and most predictable path will be followed by the Qualifications that fall under Professional Boards and Councils. The latter are likely to form parts of SGB's themselves and will operate in a system-wide fashion, so that the "national standardisation" of the required whole Qualifications (with their NQF-aligned features) will be readily achieved, usually in consultation with the provider institutions concerned. Diverse, formative programmes offered by Universities within the present structural format of NATED 02-116 will be re-designed (or newly designed as the case may be) by individual institutions to meet the required "NQF-isation" specifications contained in the existing SA~QA regulations (interim registration) and those still to be promulgated for full registration. Submission

27

of such virtually provider-specific Qualifications to SGB's (in the absence of any other intervening structure) will lead to one of the following: i) acceptance of the Qualification as one which is institution (provider)-

specific but which is a national- Qualification nevertheless (i.e. it can be offered by any other provider should the latter wish. to do so);

ii) consideration of the proposal as "one of many similar ones" and an attempt to negotiate a "standardised compromise"; and

iii) refusal of the proposed Qualification on the grounds of being "anti-NQF" or “confusing learners" or preventing clear progression lines from being established in the NQF, or for "being elitist", or whatever.

The last-mentioned possibility is a very serious risk at present, as University qualifications in particular depend on their diversity, niche-adaptation and continual re-design for their best features. QUESTION 10: Will new structures be needed to overcome the problem described in the last part of the preceding answer? It is possible that the option of creating a "Board for Formative Education" (or several such Boards) should be explored in order to create a mechanism analogous to that of having Professional Boards contributing to the development of Qualifications, i.e. a board would be able to protect the special features and diversity of University and some Technikon qualifications by functioning as a buffer between the provider institutions proposing such Qualifications and the SGB's and NSB's in the fields concerned. This may ensure that most of the decisions which are reached are in the first two categories mentioned in the preceding answer. QUESTION 11: How will "whole Qualifications" function in a hybrid system where other Qualifications are unit standards-based? The reader should refer to the NCHE report extract above for a description of how NQF-type "whole Qualifications" could function to allow progression and articulation, especially if they were provided with new intermediate exit points. If one adds the additional features now introduced by the SAQA regulations involving the "NQF-isation" of such Qualification specifications, then the outlook for efficient and effective progression and articulation, and the achievement of the overall objectives of the NQF in University and Technikon education, is very good. Some Qualifications offered by Universities and Technikons will be unit standards based and others will contain some unit standards. There is no

28

reason to believe that this will be problematic in any way or will inhibit articulation and progression in the levels 5 to 8 of the Higher Education band. Unit standards are most likely to be plentiful in Qualifications offered in the Further Education band but there should again be no difficulties with the articulation between this band and the Higher Education band, especially if a system of recognition of prior learning (RPL) is appropriately and rigorously followed, and the design of "whole Qualifications" includes the most common articulation arrangements required for a sub-system.

PAPER:

University and Technikon Qualifications in Relation to the NQF

ISSUES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

Presented by Wieland Gevers

1. We are agreed that qualifications in higher education should add real value to each qualifier in every programme. We are agreed that learners should have real empowerment for further learning and they should qualify when they can demonstrate applied competence in the sense of being able to turn knowledge and skills into reliable standards of competent functioning, as “outcomes” of higher education.

How can we do this? The issue is whether an approach based exclusively on a unit standards system of qualifications can do this, as opposed to a system of whole qualifications, both registered on the NQF. The unit standards system atomises learning to the smallest assessable units but does not integrate them and the rules of combination are planned at a distance so that quality assurance takes place at the unit level and the overall outcome is not assessable or only with difficulty. By contrast, whole qualifications are planned, coherent and integrated, and the quality assurance takes place at the level of the whole qualification through assessable outcomes. This seems a better way to go.

2. All share a commitment to increased access for talented but disadvantaged learners, to greater mobility and progression and to a system with reliable standards.

29

But how can this be achieved in university and technikon education? Again the issue lies in a choice between an NQF which contains a "universe" of registered unit standards which make up qualifications through prescribed rules of combination, or a system of articulated whole qualifications registered on the NQF. The unit standard approach will require the registration of tens of thousands of standards and there could be a bewildering variety of rules of combination which provide exit levels, make entry assumptions and allow learners to accumulate credits, transfer them, etc. The role of RPL (recognition of prior learning) is uncertain. This is a slow, expensive route for which we have no pilots in higher education and which has been nowhere successful in university or technikon education, world-wide. By contrast, the registration of whole qualifications, each with specified exit levels, entry assumptions, stated articulation possibilities, intermediate exit and entry points and a working system for RPL, provides a cheap and rapid way which has already been pilot-tested and adapted to local conditions. It also carries the possibility of providing a great improvement in the present situation while creating the space for unit standards to be tested and developed as an option.

3. It is now almost certain that SAQA will soon establish legally appointed NSB's and that SGB's in the 12 fields will also soon be in place. The system will be working with a "hybrid NQF" which contains unit standards and qualifications based on them in the further education area (with perhaps some in higher education), and many whole qualifications in higher education.

How can we successfully register appropriate whole qualifications on the NQF for the HE band? Existing whole qualifications have to be submitted to SAQA for recording by 30 June 1998. These will not be registered on the NQF as they will not contain level specifications and will not be assigned to one of the 12 fields. Institutions wishing to resubmit whole existing qualifications will have to do so in the way required by the NQF regulations promulgated by SAQA on 28 March 1998, i.e. they will be assigned to a field and will have a specified level as well as many other NQF-isation features. They are likely to be referred by SAQA to the relevant NSB's and probably by the latter to the SGB's concerned. If recommended for approval by these bodies, SAQA will register them on the NQF.

30

The question is whether whole existing qualifications thus submitted by institutions will be registered as being provider-specific or system-specific/standardised (which would require a process probably involving a professional board or some other kind of system equilibration process, and may also lead to the outcomes becoming more generic than the specific ones which will characterise provider-specific registered whole qualifications); or whether they will be refused). If SGB's and NSB's refuse to approve and recommend the registration of certain qualifications there could be significant conflict in the system.

4. There has been a thread of urgency in the report of the NCHE and in the white paper on higher education transformation for the review and restructuring of the qualification structure for higher education. This will now have to be taken up by the Ministry of Education's branch of higher education advised by the CHE and working with SAQA.

How can this be done and what are the problem areas? The most likely path will be a joint task team set up by the Department of Education/CHE and SAQA, in order to establish generic qualifications that can be used by NSB's and SGB's for their forthcoming work. The problem areas are the following: i) Whether the basic formative, first bachelor's degree should last three or

four years, exiting at level 6. ii) Whether there should be a higher education diploma (FETC + two

years) exiting at level 5 and sufficiently rounded and coherent to provide an important new element in laddered sets of qualifications.

iii) Whether the traditional certificate/higher certificate/diploma/higher

diploma/BTech series used by technikons should be revised, spanning as it does levels 5, 6 and probably 7.

iv) Should honours degrees be abolished? v) Should there be new, standardised two-step masters degrees, with exit

points roughly resembling the present honours qualifications, all at level 7?

vi) Should the short courses currently offered at universities and

technikons be converted to a unit standard system so that they can become parts of qualifications?

31

Another important aspect is the nature of the FETC for formal senior schooling as a potential whole qualification on the NQF at level 4. This will be very important for universities, as will the nature of other FETC's offered at colleges and in industry.

5. It is clear that acceptable level descriptives will be needed at an early stage for the registration of qualifications on the NQF.

How can this be achieved, as SAQA has not issued standardised level descriptors for all 12 fields? There are many examples of level descriptors in use in New Zealand, Australia and Britain, which could be adopted or adapted for South African use. SAQA has examined these and has found them to be unsuitable, both on general grounds and for local purposes. The level descriptors are to be developed "bottom-up" in each field by the relevant NSB's working with their SGB's. According to the regulations, this can be done by scaling particular exit points between 1 and 8, by using examples borrowed from elsewhere or by using first principles, etc. The problem is: how soon will they be in place and will there be consistency across the fields? There are important questions about an NQF that relate to consistency: must qualifications by title be invariant at a particular level across the system (fields) or within each field only? A very important question is whether we will need more levels in higher education than the four that have been provided by SAQA's NQF regulations. In the United Kingdom, there are now proposals for 8 levels in higher education and developmental work done for the NCHE was forced to make use of levels 5a, 5b, 6a and 6b etc. in order to cope with the expected range of qualifications in higher education.

6. What will be the role of professional boards in promoting the registration of good whole qualifications on the NQF?

An issue of special interest is whether "formative" programmes will be at a disadvantage because they do not have professional boards. There will be a large number of provider-specific registered qualifications, judging from the way in which especially postgraduate qualifications are being

32

recorded by SAQA at the moment. This is not a problem in system terms as any provider can offer these provided the design and the standards are met. In other cases, national societies for particular disciplines can play a role as quasi-professional boards in helping to produce acceptable national standards as a flexible framework for providers to work. The promising way in which established professional boards such as the Engineering Council of South Africa has succeeded in putting to the system of providers proposals for outcomes that are both acceptable and promotive of good programme provision, suggests that professional boards and similar bodies will be needed to act as a buffer between providers and a SAQA/NSB/SGB system. There is therefore issue as to whether there should be one or more professional boards for the formative programmes in higher education in order to play a role that would be similar to that of the successfully functioning professional councils. There may be much conflict if this is not done successfully. 6. All are agreed that the terminology of the SAQA system is very

complex and will take time to be internalised. It is therefore very important that the terminology be consistently and correctly used.

How can we eliminate the most important problem terms? The NQF is a national qualifications framework, not a national standards framework. SAQA, through its Act, has to register standards and qualifications. The legislation clearly means, by “standards”, unit standards. SAQA has now given a meaning to the word "qualifications" which means that these are "planned combinations of learning outcomes ... which provide qualifiers with applied competence...; which have specific and critical cross-field outcomes, which incorporate integrated assessments, and have a defined exit level". These can both be whole qualifications not comprising unit standards, or they can be built up out of unit standards according to rules of combination. The issue is thus: is a whole qualification a "qualification standard"? Is the term "unit of qualification" to be used only for unit standards that are used as constituents of unit standards-based qualifications?

33

WORKSHOP REPORT:

University and Technikon Qualifications in Relation to the NQF

Joe Muller and Mignonne Breier

Report on Workshop (17 June 1998, UWC) sponsored by Adamastor Trust, CHET and UWC’s Academic Planning Unit

PART ONE: RESUME OF WORKSHOP DISCUSSION Various issues were raised in the course of the workshop. Many arose out of concerns about the technical processes associated with the implementation of the NQF and SAQA-related bodies and with the registration of qualifications or unit standards. Others touched on broader issues, often to do with the important principles or the underlying ethos of the NQF. Many of the technical issues themselves raised broader concerns. For example there was concern whether important principles of the NQF, such as articulation and mobility, would be achieved if certain technical processes (in this case, the registration of whole qualifications rather than unit standards) were followed. Discussion about representation of the arts and social sciences within the SGBs and NSBs flowed into debate about the professionalisation implications of the whole NQF process. In the report that follows, there is no attempt to distinguish between practical and more theoretical issues. The result should demonstrate the complex intermingling of the two. Whole qualifications, unit standards or a hybrid approach: issues of responsiveness, articulation and transfer SAQA has proposed a hybrid approach in which both whole qualifications and unit standards can be registered on the NQF. At the workshop Prof Wieland Gevers argued strongly in favour of the registration of whole qualifications at higher education level. The major purposes of the NQF were much more likely to be achieved through this approach in which whole qualifications were the key factor than through an approach that emphasised the registration of unit standards. However, some participants argued that the important principles of mobility and flexibility would be lost if unit standards were not registered. Others were concerned that the complex registration process associated with this approach would affect the ability of the higher education sector to be responsive to societal needs, a principle emphasised in the White Paper on Higher Education. Participants were reminded at the workshop that all existing higher education qualifications had to be recorded by SAQA by 30 June 1998. Providers would have to re-submit these qualifications via Standards Generating Bodies (SGBs) and National Standards Bodies (NSBs) by 30 June 2000. The first recording was for the purposes of compiling a database. The second process would require alignment with NQF specifications.

34

In response to a question about whether courses within a qualification could be changed after the recording of the qualification by 30 June this year, Prof Gevers said that because whole qualifications were being registered it was unlikely that a change in a course would require re-recording of the qualification. The question as to whether short courses could be registered on the NQF also arose. Dr Nico Cloete said short courses were an important way to achieve responsiveness. They were also money generators for the institutions concerned. However, as the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) had found, there was a need for some kind of accreditation process to sort the 'charlatans' from the rest. Jonathan Gunthorp said SAQA had received many applications for registration of short courses, which ranged from attendance certificates to sophisticated paramedical qualifications. They could not be registered on the NQF because they were not national qualifications. Also, the framework did not register courses at all, only qualifications and [unit] standards. Prof Gevers made the point that many short courses which formed part of an overall qualification and had been developed in terms of the 'top down' approach recommended by the Education, Training and Development Practices (ETDP) project and the accounting profession, were very close to being unit standards. There was nothing to stop the designers of those courses from registering them through SAQA as unit standards. There was some controversy about Jonathan Gunthorp's statement that providers could change courses as they wished once the standard was in place. 'If the standard is in place then the course is your business', he said. 1 Prof Gevers added that the SAQA act provided for the registration of both [unit] standards and qualifications. The ETDP project and the accounting profession had shown how whole qualifications could be registered and then 'designed top down', with 'semi-unitised standards’ within the qualification being developed in an evolutionary fashion. These ‘semi-uitised standards’ would be very close to unit standards, he said, and there was in principle nothing to stop providers from registering them with SAQA as unit standards. The UWC Public Health Department had taken the approach of using short courses as part of their overall qualification. He suggested that providers start with whole qualifications and let them develop in a 'top down manner'. Whether the sub-elements attained unit standards was an issue that could be left to a later stage. Professor Bernard Lategan of the University of Stellenbosch agreed that that was the 'most feasible way to go'. The unit standard approach could be a

1 Mr Gunthorp used the term ‘standards’ but it is presumed he was referring generically to both qualifications and unit standards.

35

secondary phase emanating from that holistic conception. The question remained however: in what way would portability and transfer be achieved? Dr Rolf Stumpf argued that the change of courses 'willy-nilly’ would jeopardise the principles of mobility and articulation. 'Students will arrive at an institution with their bags of credits, only to be informed, ‘sorry, we have changed our course seven times since the standard was registered', he said. A technikon participant said that in the past they had to get the approval of other technikons when they introduced 'new instructional offerings within a diploma, or degree programme' and then submit it to the Department of Education for approval. Did this no longer apply? Mr Gunthorp said the changes could be made 'subject to a judicious ETQA (Education and Training Quality Assurance Body) looking over your shoulder'. Mr Hugh Amoore of UCT said that any typical higher education institution made several hundred changes at the level of instructional offerings in a year. There was no time to have a conversation with SAQA about each of these. Ms Erica Gillard of UCT commented that there seemed to be a break between the academics that were actually doing the lecturing and what was happening at a bureaucratic level. Professor Gevers said that after the recording of their existing qualifications in June, providers would be required to show that efforts had been made to increase articulation. A single qualification structure for higher education A technikon participant raised the question: what does it mean to have a single higher education system or framework? There was concern from the technikon side, he said, that universities and technikons were responding differently. What did this mean in terms of equivalence and transfer? The question could be raised: if a technikon qualification is equivalent to a university qualification, why should there not just be one qualification? And this brought one to the question: why universities and technikons at all? He also asked what the currency of a part-qualification would be if there were no unit standards. Unless one finished the year there was no currency to what one had achieved, if there were no unit standards. Will portability and flexibility be any better than what it is now? Another participant said the 'whole idea' of the NQF required 'something like short courses' within an overall qualification if one did not have unit standards. 'It seems you have to have a qualification as part of another qualification.' Another said it was not necessary to make formal qualifications out of intermediate exit points if a course was designed to admit entry at various

36

sub-points. Then a student could enter a university course after completing one year at a technikon, if the university course was so designed. Yet another participant said the 'spirit of the NQF' was the recognition of 'blocks of knowledge' and the most important thing about it was the certification and accreditation of these blocks of knowledge. Otherwise the NQF would not enable students to move to other institutions. Prof Ben Barker said one could design blocks of knowledge within specific entry and exit points without 'going the unit standard route'. To this Dr Cloete responded that there had to be some similarity in the system for this to work. Prof Gevers said certain trade-offs had to be made when one made whole qualifications the key factor. One had to resort to mechanisms other than unit standards for achieving portability. However, the whole qualification route did mean that providers took responsibility for the qualifications registered. With the unit standard route, no one knew how the individual student would 'put it all together'. Dr Andre Kraak said the arguments for portability tended to come from industry training. At universities, one tended to have fairly long components. Eric Dodge said it was unclear what was meant by a whole qualification. Was three years a whole qualification? Or two years? Or one year? When was it small enough to be a portable unit standard? The issue was what was a useful qualification that could be used as a point of mobility to other institutions. The current gap period in the approval of qualifications The higher education sector was currently experiencing a 'gap period' in which it was unclear what body had the authority to approve new qualifications: the now defunct AUT or SAQA. Article 71/74 of the new Higher Education Act said the Minister would determine the date when the system would change but he had not yet determined that date. Dr Nico Cloete said the previous agenda of the AUT was more than 1 000 pages. 'There was an absolute multitude of new courses. It was impossible to distinguish which was a technikon course and which a university course. Universities were going wholesale into diplomas on responsive kinds of issues. Technikons were doing similar things but also putting forward doctors and masters programmes. The AUT had no guidelines. How SAQA is going to deal with this problem leaves us with great expectations,' he said. A representative of the Department of Education said the executive of the AUT had had a meeting and had approved programmes for this year.

37

Mr Samuels said SAQA was meeting with the Department of Education to 'sort out what needs to happen'. He said they would 'formally set up a meeting and let people know'.2 Three-year rolling plans, funding formulae and the NQF Several participants indicated that there was confusion about the relationship between the funding formula and the processes under way in that regard, and the qualification framework. Professor Lategan made the point that the SAQA-related processes under discussion were not unrelated to the process whereby universities had to submit by 15 August this year their three-year rolling plans. Dr Stumpf said the interface between the Council for Higher Education (CHE) and SAQA had not been explored yet. People were meeting around funding but not around the approval of academic programmes. However, it was unlikely that the state would fund all registered programmes in terms of subsidising student places. Institutions would have to show, for example, the extent to which there had been regional co-operation and the extent to which they had met equity requirements. He expected that the state would not fund separate programmes in the Western Cape, for example, unless it had been shown that there had been co-operation between all the higher education institutions in the region who were involved in the field. The funding framework was not as far as the CHE had hoped and it would have a 'bosberaad' early in August to discuss the 'CHE/SAQA interface around the approval of programmes'. Earlier in the day Professor Gevers had said the Government had explicitly indicated it would not fund programmes leading to unregistered qualifications. Articulation: A technikon representative said he had experienced problems with students from other institutions. They came from the same education system but had been exposed to different staff, different philosophies and different standards. 'We are supposed to give credit but half the time they can't cope.' An example was the building courses offered by technical colleges. The colleges wanted the courses they offered to be given full credit towards the National Diploma and the courses appeared to be similar in that they were as long as the technikon courses (11 weeks) and covered the same areas but when one looked closely at the courses offered at the colleges they were in far less detail than those at the technikons. 2 This meeting has now taken place and the following agreement reached. Prior to the Minister determining a date for the system to change, the Department of Education will continue to receive applications for new qualifications but will refer these to NSBs for recommendations.

38

Capacity: Dr Nico Cloete said the various bodies being set up in terms of the SAQA process were volunteer bodies. This was not a good principle, as enthusiasm tended to run out. Only the most resourced institutions would stay in the running or the laziest staff with nothing else to do would be sent to sit on these committees: 'There are huge assumptions about capacity, which just isn't there. The Department of Education has to tell some institutions it won't pay its [subsidy] cheque until it submits student numbers. There are institutions who are two to three years behind in their SAPSE returns.' To this Jonathan Gunthorp replied that capacity building was built into the structures of these bodies. They were composed of stakeholders and stakeholder bodies had to build capacity within their organisations. Furthermore, if institutions chose not to build their own capacity by training staff, then there would be severe skills development levy and educational subsidy implications. Earlier in the day, when a question was raised about the composition of NSBs, Prof Gevers had said they were stakeholder groups and not ideally suited to doing the highly skilled technical work demanded of them. In addition, the criteria, which they had to meet, were 'incredibly complex'. For example, when an SGB reached a conclusion it had to be published in the Government Gazette for comment. It was consequently time-consuming to make a single decision. 'But this is South Africa', Prof Gevers said. 'This is a participatory post-apartheid pendulum swing towards inclusiveness and some of the processes are going to be inefficient and ineffective'. Information from SAQA: Joe Samuels of SAQA announced at the workshop that SAQA had moved offices. SAQA's new physical address is: 659 Pienaar Street Brooklyn Its new postal address is: Postnet Suite 248 Private Bag X06 Waterkloof, 0145. Tel: 012 346 5553 Fax: 012 346 9156 Mr Samuels said the constitution of five NSBs would be announced soon and the public could comment after 10 July.3

3 The names of members of all NSBs were published on 15 July.

39

He emphasised that the registration process currently underway was an interim process in which all existing qualifications needed to be recorded. Providers should not try to 'slip in’ new qualifications at this stage. In response to a comment by Dr Andre Kraak of the HSRC about the fact that university planning committees would now be dealing with 12 different national standard bodies where before they could simply 'pass a programme and send it on to the AUT', Mr Samuels said the universities could simply send the information to SAQA and they would channel it to the appropriate NSB. Asked what would happen in the case of a query, Mr Samuels said that for the NSBs there were 12 SAQA staff supporting NSBs. The query would be appropriately channelled. SAQA would need to issue an organisational flow chart, was the response of Dr Nico Cloete. Later, when Mr Samuels remarked that the National Skills Development bill would lead to further bodies, called SETAs, for the various industries, Dr Cloete quipped that 'it was quite an interesting national system' and SAQA would have to keep on issuing organograms. The fate of non-professionalised fields of higher education in the NQF process: Concern was expressed about the fate of non-professionalised fields, such as the arts and humanities, and social and natural sciences, in the NQF process. These were some of the points made in this regard: The NSB's had been constructed in terms of interest groups, but the

interests of academic disciplines such as the humanities and social sciences were not being represented. (In response to this point, it was pointed out that an entire NSB existed for the Human and Social Sciences.)

These disciplines were not an organised constituency that could

speak like the engineering and accounting professions. There were assumptions behind the NQF that people could organise themselves into stakeholder constituencies.

It was not a coincidence that the national professional bodies

represented at the workshop (Engineering Council of South Africa and the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants) had started meeting around the NQF even before 1994. They had such a high profile in their fields that they had total hegemony over knowledge in the field and were able to pull people together to develop sets of standards and qualifications.

However, the fact that they were 'so far ahead of the pack' was not

entirely due to the fact that they were well organised. It also pointed to a serious epistemological concern: that the NQF might be 'neatly dovetailed with the interests of professional bodies such as these'

40

and that 'underpinning the NQF is the professionalisation of higher education on a grand scale'.

The hegemony of the accounting and engineering professions was

striking. Yet the arts and social sciences were an 'entirely different kind of intellectual enterprise'. In these disciplines one tried to raise dissent rather than consensus.

The Ministry of Education provided 'R700 000 to R800 000' for the

development of norms and standards for teacher education. How were academics outside of such 'highly specialised, internationalised' professions to organise themselves?

Various suggestions were put forward. Jonathan Gunthorp of

SAQA said these disciplines needed to 'project themselves as those who can render problematic these things'. Prof Gevers suggested a Council to represent the interests of the arts and social sciences in the NQF process and serve as a ‘buffer’ between SAQA and rogue providers. Prof Wally Cloete of the University of the Western Cape said the South African Council for Theological Education had been active in the process of getting stakeholders together.

However, the point was also made, by Dr Rolf Stumpf, that the

associations representing these disciplines were 'bitterly poor'. How would they afford the airfares to bring academics together from across the country or to pay for the proposed council?

Dr Andre Kraak said there were many people on SAQA bodies

representing the interests of higher education, yet they had no organised identity and none of the technical apparatus which participants at the workshop were displaying. 'I don't see how some of these NSBs will make decisions on what we have discussed here today. There is a functional thrust through the NSBs'. Mr Joe Samuels of SAQA responded that people needed to 'have the information and then do the analysis and develop strategies around that'. He said one NSB was dominated by mathematicians and scientists. Later Mr Gunthorp pointed out that there were officially about 40 people representing the interests of higher education although ‘in reality, probably well over 70 academics sit on NSBs’.

Rendering problematic what is taken for granted: Dr Saleem Badat of the University of the Western Cape said he had been struck by the fact that so many problematic issues were 'rendered unproblematic' in the course of the workshop. What the various provisions meant for the business of teaching and learning was a 'black box'. There was no conception of the human beings who were meant to be engaging in the SAQA processes, the kind of skilled people who would be needed to

41

implement the provisions. The problematic debate around standards4 had been completely effaced and the curriculum and pedagogical aspects of what was being proposed had been ignored. PART TWO: BRIEF ANALYTICAL COMMENTARY “The NQF was promoted as leading the world and I would agree with that, but the question is, of course, whether it is leading us forwards or backwards”.

Michael Irwin (1997) ‘The National Qualifications Framework: Where to now?’

Waikato Forum on Education, University of Waikato, New Zealand.

The commentary below will try to capture some of the central points at issue in the discussion above. The original model of the NQF proposed the unit standard as the common building block for all qualifications. This was in order to achieve two important goals: integration and standardisation. With these two in place, it seemed possible, to the original design team of the NQF, to be able to achieve unit equivalence and hence to promise credit transfer, and portability, and to maximise learner flexibility and progression through the entire qualification system, including higher education. As has happened elsewhere where a national qualifications framework has been proposed, like New Zealand, the higher education community has, after initially welcoming the NQF, registered two important limitations of the original model. By stressing integration and standardisation, the NQF would, first, inhibit qualification diversity; secondly, by insisting on unit standards, it would promote an atomised, fragmentary, and ultimately incoherent learning experience for students - students may, it is said, compile credits on the basis of ease and proximity rather than on the basis of the vertical coherence required by advanced training in the disciplines. This could lead in turn to qualification devaluation. Again, as has happened in New Zealand, the SAQA response in South Africa has been to accede (albeit reluctantly, if public statements by SAQA officials are anything to go by) to a hybrid model, where both whole qualifications and unit standards can be registered on the framework. But with this hybrid compromise comes a new set of tensions and dilemmas, requiring trade-offs, and it is with these that the participants to the workshop wrestled. There are two critical tensions that a hybrid model brings to the fore. The first is between comprehensiveness and integration; the second is between learning coherence and portability.

4 Here, Prof Badat was using the term 'standards' in its conventional normative sense

42

By allowing providers to register whole qualifications on the NQF, the NQF opens itself up to a level of diversity that will make integration very difficult: “The more comprehensive the NQF becomes by the inclusion of qualifications with diverse componentry and assessment methodologies, the less it can be said to be integrated” (Irwin). SAQA’s response to this is to say that only national qualifications, not institutional qualifications, will be registered. The hope here is that a common structure will ensure continuity of format across providers. But what of the curriculum content? If institutions are allowed too much freedom in the local stipulation, and change, of content, then comparability is again endangered. The SAQA answer is that this will be policed by the ETQAs - that is, not in the registration circuit of the NQF but in the quality assurance circuit. But this can work well only if the registration and quality assurance processes work in close collaboration. A serious reservation raised by this workshop was that these seem, at least in this initial phase, to be far too loosely co-ordinated with each other, and in turn with the subsidy-awarding process which remains under the separate control of the DOE. A clear plan for co-ordinating the work of SAQA (in charge of registration), of the Council for Higher Education (in charge of quality assurance), and of the DOE (in charge of subsidisation) must clearly be put in place as a matter of some urgency. It is only by taking the whole qualification as the unit of programme design that coherence and quality assurance can be ensured, through the holistic assessment of the outcomes of the entire qualification: this is the heart of the higher education argument for whole qualification registration and hence for a hybrid model. But if this is so, then the unit for credit transfer becomes the entire qualification. Not necessarily, say the higher education planners: entry and exit points for transferring students can be quite explicitly built into the programme design and this should be a SAQA requirement. This means some or other kind of modular, or unit block, approach. But what ensures comparability of unit blocks? Although the ETQAs will certainly play a role, it is clear that what the whole qualification proposal rests upon is the delegation of responsibility, and accountability, for the whole assessed qualification to the provider. The provider, in other words, retains a far greater degree of autonomy in whole qualification registration than in unit standard registration. Quality assurance here will therefore have to involve greater monitoring of the provider than it will in the unit standard model, where the unit outcomes will be assured ‘at a distance’. In the end, if the integrity of the qualification and learning coherence is the paramount consideration, a certain restriction on portability will be the inevitable trade-off. There is a sector of higher education that is not just opposed to unit standardisation, but to the entire idea of registering with an external body like the NQF.

43

What is at issue here is a core difference between qualification forms. This difference is not the much disputed binary divide between universities and technikons, although it could be related to it. Rather, it is the divide between disciplines with a social history of internal autonomy, on the one hand, and disciplines with a social history of external professional regulation on the other. For the former, the exit benchmarks have always been the perogative of the providers themselves: for the latter, the exit benchmarks are the perogative of the professional community and the employers. NQF regulation is, for these disciplines, a relatively unproblematic matter, since the form of the regulation - that is, at least in part by external stakeholders - is relatively familiar to them. Their preference may, for good curriculum reasons, be for whole qualification recording, but it is clear from the example of accountancy presented to the workshop that a certain degree of unitisation would also be quite congenial to them. Both kinds of discipline are found in universities and technikons alike, though there are many university people that think that such professionally-regulated disciplines - like accountancy and engineering, for example - do not belong in the university for that reason. Technikons on the other hand have had standardised external regulation for all their disciplines for some time, and it is probably this that they are both to give up in a unitary system, despite the problems this continues to create for transferability. It is from the internally regulated disciplines - like mathematics, theoretical physics, literacy studies and sociology, for example - that the resistance to external regulation by the NQF will logically come. To many in the latter kind of discipline, it may seem that the NQF is designed to align them to the pattern of the former kind of discipline, that is, to break their traditional autonomy and to replace their regulatory regime with either that of the profession, or, in the shape of the statutory SAQA, that of the state. It is here that the composition of the SGBs becomes a particularly contentious issue, since they are designed in SAQA’s terms as a ‘stakeholder’ professional bodies, that is, as representing the external rather than the internal constituencies of the disciplines. The professional disciplines, with traditionally strong ‘stakeholder’ professional bodies, find this arrangement quite familiar, and indeed, many of the dominant professional bodies have in practice constituted themselves as SGBs. Pity the poor academics, then, who, in many of the sprawling formative disciplines like ‘languages’, have nothing remotely resembling a professional or academic association, and can certainly not be said to speak with anything like a common voice. The result is that in these NQF fields - human and social sciences is a good example - academics, as academics, are not formally represented. Individual academics may be placed on these bodies to represent other ‘stakeholder interests’, but the internal provider constituency, the traditional sole determinant of provider-autonomous disciplinary programmes, is to all intents and purposes, dispossessed on the SGBs as they are presently constituted. Nor should they expect SAQA to be sympathetic. The SAQA response is that the academics must form themselves into academic guilds, and indeed, this is

44

what the scientists have tried to do in SACNAS. The difficulty is obvious. Professional bodies were formed for a particular reason, that is, to build a causeway between providers and the intended employment sector by creating a supervening profession. In the case of the formative disciplines, no such link to an employment sector exists, and hence neither the substance nor the spectre of a profession does either. The final twist to the paradox is this: the NQF appears to be exerting pressure on the general-formative disciplines to professionalise themselves (or be controlled from without) at just the point in the history of global capitalism that it is general-formative (‘generic’) education that is said to be prized by employers rather than the more narrowly professionalised or vocationalised education. Perhaps a causeway between these insular communities and the outside world would turn out to be in their mutual interest after all. PART THREE: ABBREVIATIONS (SAQA SPEAK) AUT The Ministers Advisory Body on Universities and Technikons CHE Council on Higher Education DOE Department of Education ETDP Education Training and Development Practices Project ETQA Education, Training, Quality Assurance Bodies NCHE National Commission on Higher Education NQF National Qualifications Framework NSB National Standards Body RPL Recognition of Prior Learning SAQA South African Qualifications Authority SAUVCA South African Universities Vice-Chancellors’ Association SETO Sectoral Education and Training Organisation SERTEC Certification Council for Technikon Education SGB Standards Generating Body

45

"Outcome" of SAQA Meeting (12 August 1998) with respect to the

Registration by SAQA of New and Existing Qualifications on the NQF

Prof. Wieland Gevers

August 1998

SAQA has now formally confirmed that existing qualifications, submitted for "recording" before 30 June 1998 and re-submitted before 30 June 2000 in the format required by the NQF Regulations issued on 28 March 1998, will be registered until the end of 2003 without SGB/NSB intervention. "Processing" (as mentioned in Regulation 11(1)(b)) by SAQA will thus mean that SAQA will simply check whether these existing qualifications have in fact been genuinely and demonstrably "NQF-ised" as prescribed in the Regulations (11(1)(c)). This decision by SAQA has enormous importance for the Higher Education system as it means that a system-wide improvement in existing qualifications will take place and that many of the objectives of the NQF will be realised over a 5-year period. Amongst these are improvements in the specification of qualification-specific and cross-field outcomes, and emphasis on integrated assessment at exit level, and better articulation between qualifications. Importantly, qualifications will have to conform to the basic requirements of being planned and coherent combinations of learning elements (Regulation 8). Another implication of the SAQA decision is that the quality of programme provision by institutions henceforth will be judged in terms of the registered specifications (including outcomes) of the qualifications concerned. Since the new quality system to be set up by the HEQC for Higher Education is likely to be in place quite soon, the availability of registered "qualification standards" is important for the system. In the case of Universities, the "provider-specificity" of their qualifications will allow quality procedures to examine, in respect of each qualification, the answer to the question: "Is the programme fit for its purpose?", in each case. (Questions of fitness of purpose will be answered in other ways). A second decision confirmed by SAQA at its meeting is that new qualifications will be handled by the NSB's/SGB's in the fields to which they are assigned; the requirements and format for submission of such qualifications are those already described in the NQF Regulations issued on 28 March 1998: Regulations 8, 9, 10 and 11. New qualifications (in the case of Universities and Technikons) are those that have not already been approved by the AUT, or have been received by the Higher Education Branch of the Department of Education before 30 June 1998.