Chapter 1 - 4
role (e.g. in management)
15.8.
VQs and the Occupational Standards upon which they are based may be useful to
you in other ways: for example, they could help you to draw up job descriptions, design
career profiles, select and promote staff, and demonstrate your organization’s fitness to
undertake specific technical projects.
Benefits for staff
16.
VQs also bring a number of benefits to individuals including:
16.1.
a sense of achievement in carrying out tasks to the standard required
16.2.
public recognition for the work they are doing, or have done in the past
16.3.
national recognition: this applies wherever they go and whoever they work for
16.4.
a flexible, progressive scheme that allows them to get credit for one unit of the award at a
time
16.5.
gaining credit by carrying out their normal job to the standard required and, because NVQs
are linked to the workplace, they may not have to go away on a course or take
examinations to achieve them
16.6.
some parts of many VQs are “transferable” in that the competence involved is needed in
more than one occupation
16.7.
appropriate VQs may be accepted for admission to further and/or higher education
courses proof of competence for an VQ may be accepted as contributing to the
achievement of other forms of qualification or recognition eg professional body
membership.
17.
In SAFEX Newsletter 52
8
, Clarke informs us that:
17.1.
“In 2009, the UK’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) published a requirement for all
explosives workers to demonstrate their competence. This applies both to those employed
by the MoD (military and civilian) and to the explosives workers employed by MoD’s
suppliers so it goes right across the industry and the driver is therefore both by regulatory
and driven by the customer” said Dave Winterborne (Qualifications Assessor and Internal
Verifier). “This means that we need to understand people’s behaviours because wrong
behaviours often lead to safety failures” he went on. “We need a structure for the entire
workforce that operates on several levels so that we can structure individuals’ learning and
assess their behaviours in the workplace against fixed and absolute benchmarks.”
18.
Indeed, across Europe, the impetus for members of EUExcert is the regulatory requirement to
demonstrate the competence of the explosives workforce. EUExcert has recommended the use
of qualifications because of their ability to demonstrate the competence of an organization’s
8
https://www.safex-international.org/safex/media/downloadable-files-list/Newsletters/newsletter-52.pdf
Chapter 1 - 5
workforce through the structure of independent assessment and verification. One of the aims of
EUExcert is to enhance the mobility of explosives labour across the EU and the implementation
of qualifications facilitates the achievement of this aim. From the perspective of the individuals
working toward a qualification, its achievement is an overt demonstration of their competence
and is a powerful motivational tool.
19.
For the majority of readers, though, the main reason for qualification is regulatory, i.e. people
working with explosives are required, either by the laws of their own country or the state in
which they hope to work, to hold a recognised qualification.
Which qualification?
20.
Deciding which qualification is the most appropriate for you or your staff, if it is not prescribed in
the terms and conditions of your job, is non-trivial.
21.
The reasons for undertaking a qualification are many and varied but include:
21.1.
As part of a career structure, e.g. the BECTU JIGS grading system.
21.2.
As continuous professional development.
21.3.
In response to changes in legislation.
21.4.
To demonstrate competence to regulators or auditors.
21.5.
To fill a particular job.
22.
Whatever the reason, it is quite likely that you will want to understand exactly what is involved
in the qualification in terms of the knowledge and skills that you want to demonstrate. The
Standards and their detailed elements provide insight into the depth of a qualification, especially
if the detailed learning objectives of the qualification are known.
23.
During the project, we found the most effective way of understanding our needs was to create
role profiles in terms of the Standards, for the jobs that either exist or are an aspiration. The
process of role profiling
is covered in detail in the Step-by-Step Guide to the Implementation of
Occupational Standards at the back of this book and available separately from EUExcert
9
.
24.
The Standards are not ‘levelled’, i.e. they are standalone statements of competence; it is the
design of a qualification that brings about a level, and the Awarding Organisation that designs
and offers a qualification will usually describe it in terms of the national implementation of the
European Qualifications Framework (EQF).
9
http://www.euexcert.org/pdf/EUExImp-Step-by-Step-Guide-to-Implementing-Occupational-Standards-First-
Edition.pdf
Dostları ilə paylaş: |