Notes for Sector Skills Councils, Standard-Setting Bodies, Awarding Bodies and Participants

Credit Rating SVQs for the SCQF — Guidance for SSCs, SSBs, Awarding Bodies and Participants

APPENDIX 4

SCQF CREDIT RATING AND LEVELLING OF SVQs

NOTES FOR SECTOR SKILLS COUNCILS, STANDARD SETTING BODIES, AWARDING BODIES AND PARTICIPANTS

This section provides sector skills councils, standard-setting bodies, awarding bodies and participants with information on their roles and responsibilities when SCQF credit rating SVQs.

Role of the sector skills council

The allocation of credit and level to the SVQs and their constituent units will be carried out by the relevant sector skills councils (SSCs) in partnership with the relevant awarding bodies. Wherever possible, the use of existing awarding body forums will be encouraged as the most appropriate vehicle to bring the relevant sector body, awarding bodies and sector/industry experts together to propose the credit and level for the SVQs’ constituent Units.

It is essential that SSCs and the relevant awarding bodies are involved and are represented on the panel.

The panel can be drawn from and may even be a sub-group of existing contributors to the development of the national occupational standards and related SVQ qualification structures. More commonly they will be Awarding External Verifiers.

Partnerships should discuss their methodology with the SQA Accreditation prior to commencement.

A risk associated with this work is the ability of the sector skills council and awarding bodies to carry out this work within the required timescale. This is particularly the case in relation to those SVQs which are currently under development In order to minimise this risk, SQA Accreditation will work very closely with the relevant sector skills council’s to monitor the SSCs progress.

The credit rating of SVQs will assist sector and awarding bodies to develop their expertise in relation to the credit rating process for future years. However, the internal capacity of the sector and awarding bodies is also a key risk.

The partnership could consider the appointment of a consultant to assist in steering their individual project. SQA Accreditation will, therefore, work closely with those sector/awarding bodies’ partnerships which appoint a consultant to ensure that the sector and awarding bodies develop the necessary understanding and expertise to take this work forward in future years.

Participants

Participants (in most circumstances) are appointed by their awarding body to participate in the SVQ Credit Rating for the SCQF.

Participants must be:

knowledgeable about the SVQ Units and SVQs and the sector occupation(s) to which they relate

unbiased and capable of acting objectively and avoiding the pitfalls of hidden assumption

respected by others in the sector

able to reach balanced judgments on the basis of experience and the analysis of relevant information

able to record the outcomes of their decision making in a manner that is auditable and that reveals the basis on which decisions have been reached and assumptions made

Credit rating and levelling of SVQ for the SCQF is not a science and panel members should at all times consider the following:

it is a ‘best fit’ that is called for

the SCQF Level Descriptors are indicative, not prescriptive

the importance of recording evidence to support the determinations

professional judgement

Participants must have a copy of the relevant SVQ Units, ensuring familiarity with the breadth and variety of competence required.

SVQ Credit Rating Methodology

All panel members attend a training event to explain what is involved in SCQF credit rating of SVQs. At this event the aims and objectives of SVQ credit rating for the SCQF are explained and discussed and the SQA Accreditation methodology for calculating SCQF credit points and allocating SCQF level is agreed by the panel members.

The participants are taken through the SQA Accreditation methodology for undertaking the SCQF credit rating of SVQs. However, the participants do not need to follow the recording documentation system as detailed in this guidance so long as any alternative approach follows is systematic and the decisions it leads to can be justified and audited.

The participants should confirm the validity of the proposed methodology with SQA Accreditation prior to confirming that the approach is an acceptable one.

SQA Accreditation will be required to work closely with each partnership to ensure that the methodology applied to the SCQF credit rating process is appropriate. This will be particularly important should the sector/awarding body partnership selects and methodology which is different to that originally developed by SQA Accreditation.

For units which are imported from another SSC or SSB the SQA Accreditation Manager will confirm or otherwise if a SCQF level and credit points has already been allocated. If no SCQF level and credit has been previously allocated then the panel should undertake the SCQF Credit Rating of this unit(s).

At the end of the training event the panel divide the units which form the SVQ(s) amongst the participants, who form pairs. Timelines are agreed by which time the pairing should complete the process and submit their findings.

The participants then work on the calculation of the SCQF credit and the allocation of the SCQF level for their allocated SVQ Units.

Alternatively the participants can reconvene at a central location an work collectively to agree the SCQF level and credit points for the units in the SVQ.

This stage of the process varies slightly from pairing to pairing. The pairs are asked to swap over the units which they had SCQF credit-rated— this is a vital part of the process as it ensures the allocation of SCQF credit points and SCQF level is vetted.

During this swap stage, the pairs communicate with each other to reach agreement on the SCQF credit points and SCQF level for the individual SVQ Units. Sometimes agreement on the SCQF credit points and level is reached quite quickly, and sometimes the unit goes back and forth until agreement was reached between the pairing. A SVQ Unit sign-off form is required to be completed by the pairing to confirm the agreed findings.

Occasionally agreement is not reached by the pairing on what the SCQF level and or credit points should be, so the unit(s) are brought back to the whole group for views and confirmation of the SCQF credit and level.

All evidence generated by the pairing should be returned to SQA Accreditation no later than one week prior to the standardisation event for review and analysis.

Standardisation event

Participants all come back together at the end of the credit rating process. This stage in the process is called standardisation. This normally takes one day but some groups may require more than one day. The standardisation day is designed to review the allocations of SCQF credit points and level to the individual SVQ Units, deal with any problem units SCQF credit point and level allocations, check the standardisation of the whole SVQ and, where possible, allocate the overall SCQF level to the SVQ.

The standardisation event is also an opportunity to review findings and obtain additional feedback on the process. Participants are invited to provide feedback at all stages of the process.

NOTES FOR NVQ AWARDING BODIES

Notes for NVQ awarding bodies involved in SCQF credit rating of SVQs

This section provides NVQ awarding bodies with information on their roles and responsibilities when SCQF credit rating and levelling SVQs.

Role of NVQ awarding bodies

NVQ awarding bodies are invited to take part in the credit rating and levelling of SVQs.

NVQ awarding bodies’ involvement can be in two ways:

1either as an observer to the process by sending a sector representative from the awarding body and or External Verifier to the training event

2or by sending an External Verifier to participate in the process

The NVQ awarding bodies should now refer to the guidance as detailed for SVQ awarding bodies.