Since January 2006, the Malta Qualifications Council (MQC) was convened 34 times. Two work programmes were approved and specific targets set to meet the challenges identified by Legal Notice 347 of 2005. The overall objective of MQC is to “steer the development of the National Qualifications Framework and to oversee the training and certification leading to qualifications within the framework and which is not already provided for at compulsory education institutions or degree awarding bodies”.

A consultation process on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) was launched on 1 November 2006. A draft framework was presented by the (former) Education, Youth and Employment Minister. In it, MQC designed a process through which compulsory, vocational, higher and adult education are interlocked in a lifelong learning process. Two strands were identified: that which departs from compulsory education and leads to higher academic education and one other strand with vocational education as a point of departure leading towards higher professional degrees.

In the six-month consultation period, MQC met as many stakeholders as possible. A national conference attended by over 210 participants and organised in collaboration with the Forum Malta fl-Ewropa was held in November 2006. Six months of a nation-wide consultation led to the design of the National Qualifications Framework and its official presentation in June 2007. The presentation was supported by four draft policy documents entitled Valuing All Learning. A fifth policy document on the Validation of Informal and Non-formal Learning will be published shortly.

In October 2007, a national conference entitled Towards a National Learning Area for Vocational Qualification attracted more than 265 participants, 20 per cent of whom came from industry and the private sector. The goal of this convention was to focus, through the help of the draft MQC policy documents, on an in-depth analysis of the impact of issues related to recognition, employability, accreditation and progression on vocational qualification. During the conference three proposed cumulative passports (for NQF Levels 1, 2 and 3) were presented by the chairman of MQC as an effective tool for the recognition and accreditation of all learning.

MQC has also been very active at EU level particularly in its contribution to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) implementation group and the European Network for Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training. MQC is also leading an EQF Leonardo da Vinci project on VET qualifications related to tourism studies convening in 2007 two partner meetings in Malta (March 2007) and Barcelona (November 2007) and completing an extensive comparative research on level rating for tourism studies qualifications in Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Spain, Greece and Malta. MQC is also partner in two other Leonardo da Vinci projects focused on qualifications for security personnel and the transfer of vocational qualifications to academic qualifications, a project led by Austria and which started in January 2008.

On 29 November, 2007 MQC and the Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS) signed the first official protocol assigning levels to all ITS qualifications based on learning outcomes, occupational standards and quality assurance standards. In early December, MQC and the Guidance and Counselling Services Unit of the former Education Division launched a set of four Workbooks for students ending compulsory education entitled Career Choice in which the National Qualifications Framework was introduced as part of students’ preparation for employability.

At the beginning of February MQC moved out of its offices located at the Education, Ministry in Floriana and moved to a larger premises located in Santa Lucia. This move was necessary due to the recent increase in staff which included the new post of a senior manager in charge of Assessment and Accreditation, and two managers in charge of Office Administration and Communications. The new offices are located at 16/18, Tower Promenade, St Lucia SLC 1019.

The past two years have been significant for the building of a new culture for qualifications in Malta. Hundreds of stakeholders have had the opportunity to experience the new developments within the EU on the establishment of a European Qualifications Framework (EQF) as well as to contribute towards the making of a Malta Qualifications Framework which is now in line with the EQF. The next important steps are to legislate this process locally; to embark on a laborious process to validate, recognise and certify all informal and non-formal learning and to design occupational standards matching qualifications.

Valerie Attard B.A. (Hons.),

Dip. Mgmt., M.B.A. is Communications Manager

Malta Qualifications Council

email: [email protected]

website www.mqc.gov.mt