Вестник ТГПУ им Л.Н. Толстого №3 2005

СОТРУДНИЧЕСТВО № 3, 2005 comparisons to be made. The National Recognition Information Centre for the UK (NARIC) maintains an Internet site and database which enables international comparisons. The UK Dearing Report which examined the state of higher education in the UK considered that the establishment of benchmark information (together with the intended outcomes of study) indispensable tools for identifying the purposes of study and the attributes of graduates. Such tools ‘would be invaluable to potential learners with only a limited acquaintance with higher education and to employers lacking a detailed knowledge of the range of qualifications available. (QAA, 2005). One mechanismwhich accommodates many of the global factors described above is that of national qualification frameworks (NQFs). These have been developed over the last fifteen years in a number of Western countries, and in the Southern Hemisphere and South Africa (NQAI, 2002, p. 2). They are also currently under consideration in Russia and Central Asia, with the assistance of the European Training Foundation ( www.etf) . Qualification frameworks are structures for developing, describing and systematising the relationships between qualifications. Their essential purpose is to provide a unified framework, encompassing all awards in the fields of education and training (Mernagh, 2005). They provide coherence by replacing a number of existing individual awarding systems. These frameworks tend to eliminate, at least in theory, the division between education and training and they promote the lifelong learning society with its new career opportunities and patterns by producing a portable and flexible system of qualifications. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education details the purposes of the UK qualification frameworks as: ■ positioning all higher education frameworks relative to one another, and to other kinds of qualifications within the UK ■ facilitating comparisons with qualifications in other countries • underpinning the standards of qualifications • ensuring the accuracy and consistency of the nomenclature used • clarifying the routes of progression and lifelong learning ■ establishing a common currency for credit accumulation and transfer • providing clear and accessible public information • facilitating, where applicable, the presentation of the intended outcomes of qualifications in a form that enables professional bodies to gauge their contribution to professional formation assisting exchange with, and recruitment from other countries by clarifying the status, comparability and relative requirements and demands ofUK qualifications. (QAA, 1999, p.2). The main features of these qualification frameworks include: ■ the re-definition of ‘award’ as a recognition of the learning outcomes achieved rather than recognition of time spent in a programme of study ■ the quantification of successful learning (of the learner effort required and achieved) in terms of an educational currency known as ‘credits’ ■ a prescription of the different levels at which learning can take place and awards can be made, and the descriptors for these levels ■ the criteria for entry to the different levels and for assessment allowing awards to be made. These frameworks operate in terms of vertical structures which facilitate access and progression for learners, and horizontal structures, which through the creation of bridges allow the recognition of equivalences, and promote mobility and transfer. A diagrammatic representation of the Irish National Qualifications Framework demonstrates the way inwhich a framework system can function and an example is provided showing the learner progress up the framework.