New Zealand’s move to graduate-profile framed qualifications: implications, challenges and the occupational identity solution

Abstract

In 2008, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), responsible for the quality assurance of all qualifications, embarked on a review of all qualifications between Levels 1 and 6 on the 10-level National Qualifications Framework (NQF). The review process mandated the reviewed qualifications to be founded on outcome statements of graduate profiles with progressions onto education and employment pathways. New qualifications would replace national qualifications based on lists of core compulsory and elective competency-based standards. This article provides background to the author’s perceived move of New Zealand qualifications from the realist to a relational perspective towards framing qualifications, with the relational perspective affording opportunities for qualifications to better recognise the complex nature of graduate or occupational identities. The current recommendations for the assurance of national consistency of graduate outcomes across qualifications are deliberated and recommendations are made for curriculum and assessment developments to support the shift towards the relational perspective.

Keywords:

• graduate profiles
• occupational identity
• qualification systems
• qualification completions
• learning as becoming