1. Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions
Presentation by QQI at the IAHIP Colloquium on Statutory Regulation, Standards and Training
20 October 2014
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

2. Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions
Mission
Our mission is to promote the enhancement of quality in Ireland’s further and higher education and training and quality assurance providers. QQI supports and promotes a qualifications system that benefits learners and other stakeholders.
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

3. Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions
Broad Goals
Establish a comprehensive, coherent set of QQI policies and procedures with the NFQ (National Framework of Qualifications) as a central organising feature.
Prioritise learners in its policies and actions and in its relations with stakeholders.
Quality assure providers and support the enhancement of the quality of education and training provision.
Collaborate with stakeholders to create greater coherence within and between Ireland’s education and training systems and with its qualifications system.
Provide relevant, timely and comprehensive information to the public on the quality of education and training provision and qualifications.
Build an organisational culture to enable QQI to perform successfully.
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

4. Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions
Quality Assurance
Span: external quality assurance of both higher and further education and training
Remit: all public providers and elective private providers
Approach: tailored guidelines and criteria with NFQ as an organising principle
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

5. Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions
NFQ
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

6. NFQ Standards and Guidelines
At QQI, we maintain the NFQ (National Framework of Qualifications) as a system of levels for relating different qualifications (i.e. awards) to one another
These levels are described in terms of general (non-subject-specific) indicators of a person’s knowledge, skill and competence (i.e. standards for their learning achievements).
We maintain NFQ Award-type Descriptors that specify learning achievements in a general way for all the types of awards recognised in the NFQ.
We may issue NFQ Guidelines to support the interpretation and implementation of the NFQ and its Award-type Descriptors.
We also set Awards Standards for our own QQI awards and those made by providers to whom we have delegated authority (DA awarding bodies).
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

7. Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions
QQI Awarding
Awarding body for nearly 800 providers
Higher Education: broad awards standards—more like frameworks
Further Education: standard for each named award but policy is evolving
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

8. Now stand back for a Wider view
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

9. Qualifications System
Qualifications systems and related concepts –a QQI background paper (May 2013)
A Qualifications system involves “all aspects of a country's activity that result in the recognition of learning. These systems include the means of developing and operationalising national or regional policy on qualifications, institutional arrangements, quality assurance processes, assessment and awarding processes, skills recognition and other mechanisms that link education and training to the labour market and civil society…” (OECD 2007)
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

10. A complex adaptive system!
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

11. Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions
‘Qualifications are social constructs more than they are technical constructs; they are based on deeply rooted social relations and practices and political interests (Raffe 2009a). They are also complex entities, with multiple and changing functions (CEDEFOP, Coles et al. 2010). Their effectiveness depends on familiarity, reciprocity and, above all, trust (Young 2002, Young and Allais 2009) – all of which tend to develop in the context of practice, in relatively stable institutional contexts, over a period of time. The appropriate metaphor for the reform of qualifications is therefore organic, based on horticulture rather than engineering.’ (Raffe, 2013)
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

12. Occupational Standards
Here ‘occupational standard’ means a standard of knowledge, skill and competence that must be achieved to qualify or license a person to practise in a specific occupation.
An education and training programme and award may be designed to prepare a person for entry into an occupation. Education and training programmes and awards may also be designed for practitioner development purposes. Such programmes and awards (and awards standards) benefit from the existence of detailed and up-to-date occupational standards.
Contrast with educational standards
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

13. Now FOCUS on PROFESSIONAL BODIES
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

14. Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions
Professional Body
Any kind of stable organisation, association or institute having, as its defining function, the exercise of a recognised and legitimate role in the support of the profession
Concerning professional practice, knowledge, technology, governance, ethics, standards, regulation, promotion and such like
Incipient professions can emerge spontaneously where there is a critical mass of people with shared interests. Progression towards stability can take time and must be achieved by the profession itself as it matures.
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

15. Professional Recognition Body
Sections 13 and 14 of the Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Education and Training) Act 2012 deal with relations between QQI and professional recognition bodies
A PRB "means a body (including a professional association, professional institute, or any other professional organisation) required or authorised by or under a law of the state to supervise or regulate the conduct of persons engaged in a profession"
All Competent Authorities are PRBs.
A PRB may or may not be a professional body.
A professional body may or may not be a PRB
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

16. Recognition of Professional Awards Within the NFQ
Professional award-type descriptors
Policy published in 2014
Currently planning to look at accountancy awards
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

17. Now Focus on the Counselling and PSYCHOTHERAPY Profession
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

18. QQI Award Standard for Counselling and Psychotherapy
Published in July 2014
Standards for higher education qualifications
Developed by an expert group involving the professional bodies concerned directly or through the PTF
Extensive consultation
The standards will be used by QQI validation panels (and those of bodies with delegated authority from QQI to make awards concerned) when recommending whether a new programme should be validated for a specific qualification in counselling or psychotherapy.
Other bodies may use these QQI awards standards
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

19. QQI Award Standard for Counselling and Psychotherapy
In developing the standards it has been assumed that counselling and psychotherapy can each be served by a common framework of standards.
The awards standards have been designed to accommodate the diversity of current approaches to counselling and psychotherapy and indeed future ones.
They emphasise expected learning outcomes which apply to all theoretical orientations in both counselling and psychotherapy.
The awards standards make no attempt (beyond the stated assumptions) to define counselling and psychotherapy or distinguish between them. These are matters for the professional associations and any future statutory regulators.
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions

20. Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions
Thank you
For further information please see our new website Peter Cullen Framework Standards and Guidance Qualifications Services QQI
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Quality and Qualifications Ireland and its Functions