What is the difference between nvq and gnvq

Our IEQs are a comprehensive range of quality English language awards designed for those who need a passport to work, study and travel around the globe. They are recognised by employers, educational institutions and professional bodies worldwide.

ILM qualifications are recognised all over the world as the sign of a motivated and skilled leader or manager. These unique qualifications recognise your professional experience and skills, and show employers that you really are among the best in the business. Find a course or qualification I'm looking for: Search.

Find a centre Near me:. Offering: Search. Centres Learners Employers. Qualifications explained. Apprenticeships Apprenticeships are a great way to earn while you learn and prepare yourself for a brilliant career.

Technical Qualifications These highly-practical qualifications were developed for learners wishing to specialise in a technical occupation or occupational group. TechBac Our gold-standard programme of study for year-olds. Functional Skills, Core Skills and Essential Skills These are qualifications in English, maths and ICT that support you to develop the practical skills you need for life, education and the workplace.

International Vocational Qualifications IVQs Our range of International Vocational Qualifications IVQs are designed to measure the knowledge and practical skills of learners and are designed specifically for the international marketplace. Unfortunately the specifications made the assumption that there would be limited work experience and any active modes of learning would be through projects, assignments and where opportunities existed limited work experience.

Their creation gave rise to the three track system in England and Wales i. Scotland had a similar system e. The basic design model was configured on six elements namely: assessment outcomes and procedures, core skills development, grouping of units, knowledge acquisition and portfolio compilation. Therefore in summary they would provide the basic skills and an understanding of the underlying principles in a vocational area and the award was achieved with a range of core skills.

All the GNVQs were based on a number of units which were assessed separately and awarded credits towards the achievement of the qualification. GNVQ unlike NVQs did not attempt to develop directly occupational competence but rather to achieve a foundation of skills, knowledge and understanding that would underpin a range of occupations. The intention together with the work place NVQs would become the primary provision for vocational education and training. During the NCVQ worked with the major vocational awarding bodies e.

The frameworks allowed considerable flexibility of delivery as the specifications did not pre-define a syllabus or learning programme but only the expected outcomes. There was no fixed time period for the award as individual differences between students was recognised and this as was particularly helpful to adult learners who could study part-time at a college whilst working and also undertake open or private study.

A number of commentators observed that GNVQ allowed the students to take greater responsibility for their own learning. In a devastating report, she suggested that GNVQs had failed to match the status of A-levels, and did not provide a genuine route into jobs for school-leavers. Nor was she convinced that the qualifications were attracting more young people down the vocational route overall.

Although they had been endorsed as one of the three key pathways for young people in Sir Ron Dearing's review of to education, many schools and young people had remained loyal to long- standing qualifications such as the BTEC National Diplomas, some of which cover similar areas of study.

The most popular areas of study reflect a similar devotion to potential careers in business and the service industries, such as health and tourism. Far from simplifying the qualifications jungle, GNVQs seem simply to have added to it without shifting the direction of young people's interests at all.

Far from solving the problems inherent in A-levels, where students have been drifting away from science for years, the new so-called vocational A-levels seem merely to have replicated them. The only fear about the new courses which does not seem to have been fulfilled is that the universities would not regard them as an adequate preparation for a degree course.

An advanced GNVQ is intended to be the equivalent of two A-levels, and in some schools and colleges students are taking the two qualifications alongside each other. The Joint Council's statistics show that around three- quarters of students completing an advanced course apply to university, and of those about two-thirds are successful. The nature of the qualification means that most applicants apply for vocational degree courses, which are concentrated mainly in the new universities, the former polytechnics.

If the GNVQs were intended to keep young people in education, they seem to have succeeded. If they were intended to prepare them for jobs - as the vocational content suggests - then they have not, because few with the new qualifications are choosing to look for work.

And increasingly people are asking just how many consecutive years of vocationally-oriented education a young person needs. Professor Alan Smithers, of Brunel University, a trenchant critic of vocational education in this country, reacts strongly to the Wolf report.