Beware of school bias

The decision to form single agencies to oversee non-university qualifications may not be good news. It involves dangers that need to be considered in advance.

The Qualifications and National Curriculum Authority will be formed next year from the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority and the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, and the Scottish Qualifications Authority will emerge from the Scottish Examinations Board and the Scottish Vocational Education Council. Once these bodies are in place (page 4), they will be the setters of curricula and standards for every qualification in the UK except those awarded by universities - and universities will be deeply affected by their approach to A levels, GNVQs and Scottish Highers, let alone higher level GNVQs.

Sir Ron Dearing's 16-19 review set the scene for the system which is now planned, and Gillian Shephard, Secretary of State for Education and Employment, is right to point out that the merger will parallel the one that produced her own department.

The new body will have its work cut out ensuring that it has the confidence of customers. NCVQ has been far less securely established with its customers than has SCAA. The new agency will start, unless it is very careful, with a strong schools bias. Further education as a direct customer and at one remove higher education have a strong vested interested in counteracting such a bias.

The danger for further education is that the body that runs A levels and GCSEs as well as vocational qualifications is likely to be dominated by the schools' agenda. Attempts to establish respected vocational qualifications could be overwhelmed by the weight of schools' work in the new body's remit. The colleges may find that their distinctive independence, which makes them so attractive to those who have had enough of school, will be reduced as they are sucked into the orbit of a single agency. This could damage the colleges' links to employers and their ability to make vocational qualifications work.

Confidence will be greatly encouraged if NCVQ and ScotVec staff are to the fore in the new organisations, and the new authorities are well supplied with members with a strong interest in vocational qualifications. It would also help if the Government could find more money for further education so the colleges can concentrate on delivering courses rather than averting catastrophe.

The danger for higher education is twofold. Higher education's interests are likely to come lower down the agenda. Even now most people do not go to university. And the pressure on the new agency to follow the employment orientation of the merged Education and Employment Department will be strong. University admissions tutors, the main "consumers" of the A-level academic product, will find themselves a less important constituency for the merged agency than they are now.

And the new agency will have formidable power. Once it is into its stride the pressure for higher level GNVQs, which will erode universities' control of their own curricula, will grow. An accreditation and credit transfer agency (see page vi) under the control of higher education, in collaboration with professional associations, will be harder to achieve with NVQs nestled into a government-controlled monolith.