The national qualifications framework was not set up to constrain provision but provide a safeguard and guide for those who take and use qualifications (“Invisible effort for industry”, TES, June 6).
It contains fewer than 4,000 qualifications - not the 85,669 that your article suggests. More than half of these were developed in response to specified industry needs.
Accreditation is not slow: vocational courses are accredited within six weeks; changes to qualifications to meet new requirements generally within three weeks. It would also have been helpful to mention the work the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is doing to make qualifications more responsive to changing skills needs.
Keith Weller
Deputy chief executive, QCA Editor’s note: The 85,669 figure referred to the number of qualifications on the Learning and Skills Council database.
