Germany proposes national framework for more transparency on its qualifications in Europe
EU Member States are currently working to define national qualifications levels in terms of learning outcomes – what a learner knows, understands and is able to do – in order to link them to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). The EQF is an EU-wide tool to make qualifications more readable and comparable across Europe. Germany has just presented a proposal for a national qualifications framework (DQR) as the result of a co-operation between federal and Länder authorities which also involved representatives from the education sector, social partners and other experts.
With its eight-level reference matrix the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) acts as a translation device between national systems in Europe promoting workers' and learners' mobility between countries and facilitating their lifelong learning. One of the key ideas behind the EQF is that qualifications are best described through learning outcomes while traditionally, qualifications are mostly described in terms of input such as length of study or type of institution attended.EU Member States taking part in this voluntary scheme have pledged to refer their qualifications to the EQF by 2010, which they can do only by applying the learning outcomes approach. Most of them plan to do this by developing a comprehensive national qualifications framework. The German proposal is an important step towards a German national qualifications framework.
The idea of learning outcomes is clearly reflected in the German proposal: "it is important what people are able to do and not where they have learned it."
The proposal for a German qualifications framework (Deutscher Qualifikationsrahmen) is available at: http://www.deutscherqualifikationsrahmen.de [in German]
To know more
- European Commission: The European Qualifications Framework
