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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

Presentation by QQI at the IAHIP Colloquium onStatutory Regulation, Standards and Training

20 October 2014

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MissionOur mission is to promote the enhancement of quality in Ireland’s further and higher education and training and quality assurance providers. QQI supports and promotes a qualifications system that benefits learners and other stakeholders.

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Broad Goals• Establish a comprehensive, coherent set of QQI policies and

procedures with the NFQ (National Framework of Qualifications) as a central organising feature.

• Prioritise learners in its policies and actions and in its relations with stakeholders.

• Quality assure providers and support the enhancement of the quality of education and training provision.

• Collaborate with stakeholders to create greater coherence within and between Ireland’s education and training systems and with its qualifications system.

• Provide relevant, timely and comprehensive information to the public on the quality of education and training provision and qualifications.

• Build an organisational culture to enable QQI to perform successfully.

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Quality Assurance• Span: external quality assurance of

both higher and further education and training

• Remit: all public providers and elective private providers

• Approach: tailored guidelines and criteria with NFQ as an organising principle

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NFQ

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NFQ Standards and Guidelines• At QQI, we maintain the NFQ (National Framework of

Qualifications) as a system of levels for relating different qualifications (i.e. awards) to one another

• These levels are described in terms of general (non-subject-specific) indicators of a person’s knowledge, skill and competence (i.e. standards for their learning achievements).

• We maintain NFQ Award-type Descriptors that specify learning achievements in a general way for all the types of awards recognised in the NFQ.

• We may issue NFQ Guidelines to support the interpretation and implementation of the NFQ and its Award-type Descriptors.

• We also set Awards Standards for our own QQI awards and those made by providers to whom we have delegated authority (DA awarding bodies).

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QQI Awarding• Awarding body for nearly 800

providers• Higher Education: broad awards

standards—more like frameworks• Further Education: standard for

each named award but policy is evolving

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NOW STAND BACK FOR A WIDER VIEW

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Qualifications System• Qualifications systems and related concepts –a

QQI background paper (May 2013)• A Qualifications system involves “all aspects of a

country's activity that result in the recognition of learning. These systems include the means of developing and operationalising national or regional policy on qualifications, institutional arrangements, quality assurance processes, assessment and awarding processes, skills recognition and other mechanisms that link education and training to the labour market and civil society…” (OECD 2007)

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A complex adaptive system!

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Qualifications• ‘Qualifications are social constructs more than they

are technical constructs; they are based on deeply rooted social relations and practices and political interests (Raffe 2009a). They are also complex entities, with multiple and changing functions (CEDEFOP, Coles et al. 2010). Their effectiveness depends on familiarity, reciprocity and, above all, trust (Young 2002, Young and Allais 2009) – all of which tend to develop in the context of practice, in relatively stable institutional contexts, over a period of time. The appropriate metaphor for the reform of qualifications is therefore organic, based on horticulture rather than engineering.’ (Raffe, 2013)

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Occupational Standards• Here ‘occupational standard’ means a standard of

knowledge, skill and competence that must be achieved to qualify or license a person to practise in a specific occupation.

• An education and training programme and award may be designed to prepare a person for entry into an occupation. Education and training programmes and awards may also be designed for practitioner development purposes. Such programmes and awards (and awards standards) benefit from the existence of detailed and up-to-date occupational standards.

• Contrast with educational standards

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NOW FOCUS ON PROFESSIONAL BODIES

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Professional Body• Any kind of stable organisation, association or

institute having, as its defining function, the exercise of a recognised and legitimate role in the support of the profession

• Concerning professional practice, knowledge, technology, governance, ethics, standards, regulation, promotion and such like

• Incipient professions can emerge spontaneously where there is a critical mass of people with shared interests. Progression towards stability can take time and must be achieved by the profession itself as it matures.

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Professional Recognition Body• Sections 13 and 14 of the Qualifications and Quality

Assurance (Education and Training) Act 2012 deal with relations between QQI and professional recognition bodies

• A PRB "means a body (including a professional association, professional institute, or any other professional organisation) required or authorised by or under a law of the state to supervise or regulate the conduct of persons engaged in a profession"

• All Competent Authorities are PRBs. • A PRB may or may not be a professional body. • A professional body may or may not be a PRB

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Recognition of Professional Awards Within the NFQ

• Professional award-type descriptors• Policy published in 2014• Currently planning to look at

accountancy awards

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NOW FOCUS ON THE COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY PROFESSION

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QQI Award Standard for Counselling and Psychotherapy

• Published in July 2014• Standards for higher education qualifications• Developed by an expert group involving the

professional bodies concerned directly or through the PTF

• Extensive consultation• The standards will be used by QQI validation panels

(and those of bodies with delegated authority from QQI to make awards concerned) when recommending whether a new programme should be validated for a specific qualification in counselling or psychotherapy.

• Other bodies may use these QQI awards standards

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QQI Award Standard for Counselling and Psychotherapy

• In developing the standards it has been assumed that counselling and psychotherapy can each be served by a common framework of standards.

• The awards standards have been designed to accommodate the diversity of current approaches to counselling and psychotherapy and indeed future ones.

• They emphasise expected learning outcomes which apply to all theoretical orientations in both counselling and psychotherapy.

• The awards standards make no attempt (beyond the stated assumptions) to define counselling and psychotherapy or distinguish between them. These are matters for the professional associations and any future statutory regulators.

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Thank youFor further information please see our new website www.qqi.ie

Peter Cullen pcullen@qqi.ie Framework Standards and GuidanceQualifications ServicesQQI