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What's In A Name?
I was looking through the part-time prospectus for the new Belfast Metropolitan College when I noticed that GNVQs have been renamed again.
When I was doing my A-levels in 1999 Advanced GNVQs were being renamed to VCE (Vocational Certificate of Education) A-Levels to encourage people to equate them with the existing GCE (General Certificate of Education) A-levels used to set entrance requirements to universities and in job applications etc. In fact, while I studied A-Level computing, thanks to a policy decision by the school, fellow pupils in the year below me were studying a GNVQ in ICT. One or two years later that would be a VCE A-Level in ICT.
Whatever you call it though, it's still not the same qualification and those studying it knew this. I felt that they were being fed a substandard course by a school more interested in getting more people into ICT than by offering a high standard of education. I saw some of the work they were doing and it was pitiful.
Anyway, the government attempt to pretend that GNVQs were real A-levels by renaming them doesn't seem to have worked. The reason, presumably, that people measuring candidates for university places or jobs recognise that vocational courses are not equivalent to an academic course, in no small part because they are so focused on coursework which is generally marked much more leniently than exams and which is also easier to cheat in.
Instead of recognising this though, it seems the government has renamed them again, hoping that people will forget that they're vocational qualifications. Now they're "GCE Applied A-Levels". For the love of God, get a grip!
Vocational qualifications have they're place for people looking to learn a trade or a vocation (funnily enough). They do not make good preparation for academic study at university though.