NVQ's

NVQ's

by: QES - 06-03-08 15:01

Interesting article on the quality of NVQ's, however the writer failed to understand a vital issue, this is - National Vocational Qualifications are for staff who have been working in a profession for some years, they have the knowledge and understanding required for the post and have a good deal of experience. All they require is a formal qualification.

Doing an NVQ in any subject is a way of proving you are a competent practitioner NOT a learner.

Only experienced child care professionals should be doing their NVQ's. Anyone else should go to college to do one or more of the variety of excellent courses aimed at training and teaching the very many skills a child carer need along with the in depth vast knowledge required to be a child care professional.

NVQ's were never intended to nor should they every replace training and education.

If as the article states students with NVQs have no knowledge or understanding, then they should not have a child care and education qualification, one can only be gained by providing evidence that one is compeptent.

by: joshuajones

NVQ's unfortunately are not for those who have been working in the a profession for some years, They USED to be, and when this was the case were a reasonable qualification.

Now they are for anyone who doesn't want to stay on at school, go to college, (or can't afford to), you can get an NVQ in childcare by the age of 16 now with NO practical experience with children !! How does that work !!!!!!!

NVQ's have and do replace training and education, but I agree NVQ's should not be in Childcare and Education. The Government shot themselves in the foot when they introduced this system into childcare, and they wonder why standards are falling.

I feel NVQ stands for NOT VERY QUALIFIED. 

by: Chelle

When i started my NVQ i had only been in the sector for 3months, but it was at my managers discression that I was asked to do it. 

I do not agree that NVQ stands for not very qualfied as I take pride of my qualfication, but i do feel like it has been slightly degraded.

I would love to do my EYPS, but as I am not yet 21 this is not possible, at this current time i'm just playing the waiting game.

 On the other hand, why do I need a piece of paper to tell people what I am capable of doing with children at my setting. 

The staff I work with, both qualfied and not are fantastic workers, and some of those without qualfications, have more experience in childcare than those that do!

 If i did not complete my level 3 within a setting I would not of gained the knowledge and understanding of children that I have.

by: joshuajones

I agree a piece of paper does not mean you are good at your job. I have worked with qualified people that I wouldn't leave my dogs with and unqualified people that I would trust my grandchildren with.

NVQ training is just quite simply not as good as the old NNEB or Btec qualification. And as said many times before is only as good as the place you train and dependent on the Assessor you have.

If you watched the Whistleblowers programme yesterday, what sort of a training would you have had in the nurseries highlighted there ???????

Aa full time college based training gives you the information you need and the time to consolidate what you have learnt with your practice in your placement. It also gives you the opportunity to discuss bad practice with professional people.

If you do your NVQ in a poor nursery and you have no experience - how will you know it is bad practice and not the norm ?

by: Maestro

Dont even get me started on NVQs, they should be scrapped now as the original idea has now been overlooked and as JoshuaJones has said, it is "Not Very Qualified!!"

by: luckylee25

I work in Scotland within a local authority nursery. In this authority SVQ trainess train and at completion they are given a permanent post. Most start around age 16 straight from school.  There are not a lot of permanent posts so temporary staff who have many years experience and  are college trained are left undertaking temporary work within the authority.  This is a little worrying considering th previous posts

by: Skyenet

Glad I live in a different authority area in Scotland then :-)  Have been advised by all local Nurseries (Public & Private) that they would give preference to somebody with an HNC rather than a SQV level 3.   Joshujones is spot on about doing your NVQ in a poor Nursery.  At College we are able to compare experiences and students soon get themselves shifted out of Nurseries that are not up to scratch.  We also experience different age ranges including 0-3, 3-5 and 5-7 and when I was on placement at a local school, the staff said our work, especially on child development, was more involved that the stuff student teachers covered.  I was on a placement once where my key worker who was SQV/NVQ Level 3 trained and she wasn't aware of half the stuff I was doing on my NC course.  I feel that getting to experience good practice at a range of settings has been invaluable in my training.

by: Cheryl

The NVQ is only part of the framework of qualifications (please refer to CWDC and QCA) that a childcare practitioner should achieve, they should also achieve a technical certificate (giving them the underpinning knowledge), basic skills (numeracy & literacy), paediatric first aid, and the Employers Rights and Responsibilies, the whole making up the apprenticeship framework.  It's not surprising therefore that a stand alone NVQ would produce a less than fully competent practitioner, my only surprise is that a fellow Managing Director would think that it would.  Unfortunately there are many local authority staff and even some college lecturers and managers who are similarly uninformed on the current process, not helped by Ofsted also accepting a technical certificate OR an NVQ as sufficient qualification for a supervisor, when without the whole framework plus staff supervising training and on-going CPD, either is clearly insufficient unless the setting is lucky with the individual concerned.  Its time Ofsted, the CWDC, local authorities and all MDs joined up on this one.

Of course all NVQs and all technical certificates are only as good as the training provider or college delivering them plus the individual concerned, despite the awarding bodies standardisation, but just like any University degree.  Employers will always have to check staff out for themselves and be aware that certificates from some institutions or organisations will be wortha lot less than those from others.

by: Annie

The idea of NVQ's was excellent. I did the NNEB which was so easy I could have done it in a month! It was aimed at 16 year olds and run by ex teachers so a lot of theory but the practice was at the hands of some very dodgy nursery nurses. As an ex nurse I found the lack of knowledge and dare I say it - care I witnessed quite distressing. When I set up my own nurseries I decided to train my own staff and started with City & Guilds before moving on to NVQ3. Each unit was covered in depth - the theory was equivalent to A levels and beyond and assessment could only be satisfactorily achieved if the candidate really did know her stuff and could put it into action.  The result for my nursery was well qualified and skilled staff who were an absolute asset .NVQ's meant  a brilliant way of ensuring that what I taught in the classroom was carried out in the placement. However, local colleges with their 'bums on seats' and targets to achieve produce practitioners who cannot carry out even basic tasks and certainly more often than not cannot relate theory to practice.Local colleges didn't like me assessing their students as I took too long and was 'particular'. Incidentally, my External Verifier told me that our centre was the best she had ( better than several of the local colleges) but I gave up the training because og Government changes which made it too difficult to continue. I was very saddened as I had written new unit training materials which were quite innovative and particularly  exciting for me as I would have loved to have used them with a group. However, there are only so many hours in the day and increased paper work, inspections etc plus having two day nurseries  to manage leaves less and less time for training.

by: Ann Woolley

as a teacher in FE the report on NVQ's was read with

a)      great relief in that at last my own fear and concern was being vocalised and

b)      even greater concern that, despite all the evidence, the situation is being allowed to  continue – and indeed is worsening daily.

 Our student numbers dwindle each year as prospective students are attracted to the fast track NVQ qualifications offered by training providers regarded as beacon providers by a government that equates excellence with the number of pieces of paper issued – despite the fact that these ‘papers’ may confirm a competence that does not exist in practice.  Any provider that insists on

1.      high levels of practical competence along with

2.      academic standards

may find, as a result, that they have lower levels of retention and achievement and this will incur, not only the displeasure of their own institution but that of the Learning Skills Council.  They will be considered a failing department because they have made  the quality of the early years experience of our young children the prime, if not the only criteria in the determination of whether to issue a ‘licence’ to practice.  If they are not careful they may find their own licence to practice removed. 

by: janny

I worked for almost a year as a full time NVQ Assessor for a training provider. As the time went on I became increasingly more and more uncomfortable with the way the system worked. It was all about bums on seats. I wasnt very popular with them when I refused to put my name to a learner's work as I didnt feel it was competent, neither would I sign a unit off as complete unless I felt the work covered everything the Stadards were asking. The final straw ca,e when there was a meeting of all Assessors in the company to decide whether a particular learner was competent and should we sign her off as so because if we didnt we wouldn't get paid. They all looked at me as though I was an alien when I suggested that she should only be sigbed off as competent if indeed she was and we where happy to put our name to paperwork confirming this. It was at this point I decided to leave, that and the fact that I had witnessed assessors doing the work for the learners. It all boils down to targets and money. 

I have said beore on here and I will say itagain an NVQ qualified person is only as good OR bad as their allows them to be. I have known many who have qaukified the NVQ way who are excellent and many NNEB;s who aren't. We shouldn't generalise but take people on their own merits. Remember its the training provider who has signed them off as competent.

However, I agree there is definitely room for abuse, we have seen that, but please dont write everyone off who hold an NVQ!  

by: janny

Sorry about spelling mistakes - haven't got my glasses on!

by: hugzey

I completely agree with the statement an NVQ qualified person should be recognised as good as a person with an NNEB qualification. I dispair the comments of some people who dismiss people with NVQ's as being NOT VERY QUALIFIED! What an insult!! As a deputy manager who qualified with an NVQ 3 seven years ago I would say that my practice is very good, I strive to regularly update my practice by continuous proffessional development and am a very reflective practitioner on a daily basis. There is room for abuse in any qualification and the proof whether a practitoner is any good or not is surely when they are employed and shown in their daily practice, not by the piece of paper that says NVQ or NNEB!!

To generalise and say that all students who are undertaking an NVQ are not good, in my own experience as a manager those working on a daily basis with children and families develop very good practice with hands on experiences as compared to a student who spends most of their time at college.

The main points of what we are missing here is that no matter what initals are on your piece of paper (NNEB, NVQ) this does not determine whether or not you are a good practitioner. What does influence this is what kind of person you are, your disposition as a learner and what kind of setting you work in or have worked in in the past. People pick up bad habits, display bad practice and see childcare as the easy route no matter whether they are NNEB or NVQ qualified. (As a manager I have seen this!!) and to generalise that all practitioners with an NVQ are all the same is disheartening, disrespectful and insulting to some proffessionals.