What’s happening?

Vocational and work-related qualifications are changing to become more responsive to the demands of employers and learners. They will be more relevant to employers’ needs and more accessible to a wider range of learners.

An essential tool in this reform of vocational qualifications is the Qualifications and redit

Framework (QCF).

What’s the QCF?

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

Learners can build up their units at their own pace and put them towards a full qualification. They can bank all their achievements over time and keep them as they move from education into a job or from one job to another. They don’t have to study anything they already know. In the QCF, everything learnt is valuable. All qualifications in the QCF are built from smaller units of learning.

How does it work?

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