Ok, hand on heart, do you really understand NVQs?

Given that we work in education, most of us probably think we do.    But the rest: the educational unintelligensia, what do they know of them?

Not a lot, at least according to the latest DfES commissioned survey, reported in TES FE Focus last week.    "NVQs are still not understood by most employers two decades after they were introduced.    Nine out of ten firms had heard of the qualification, but one in 20 said they would avoid recruiting candidates with an NVQ . . . [and] only 45% had any useful understanding of the qualification."    Ouch.

In its editorial comment, TES mirrors the "angry" response of the Association of Colleges and exhorts employers to take the trouble to find out.    "The amount of money firms spend on off-the-job training per employee each year is about the same as some spend on an executive lunch.    If employers ignore NVQs and, in doing so, overlook the vocational skills of the candidate, they deserve to be lumbered with the under-trained workforce for which many parts of British industry have sadly become famous."

Well, that's probably fair enough.    But I suspect there are other factors at work.    For one, ignoring NVQs does not necessarily mean that employers overlook the skills they represent.    But what it might mean is that they're not convinced that a candidate with an NVQ has the skills they want.   

An NVQ is, after all, an educational product.    And if NVQs were really delivering the goods, I think they would be valued.    If, after 20 years, they haven't, if the product doesn't sell, no sensible industry blames the customers;    they sit round and revamp the product.    If employers don't want to "buy" NVQs, there's not much point in blaming them.

Source:    TES FE Focus 3 March pp1, 4