'Stop Making Sense': Chaos and coherence in the formulation of the Irish qualifications framework

This article addresses some critical issues relating to the emergence of a national framework for qualifications in Ireland. The emergence of the framework is addressed with reference to the broad field of sense-making theory and with the aid of a metaphor drawn from chaos theory. The article suggests that the main dynamic driving the emergence of the framework has been in the newly confident further education and vocational education and training sectors, where two decades of ground-level initiatives resulted in the establishment of new national certification systems. The relationship of the established systems of schooling and of higher education to the newly emerging framework is discussed. The process of legislation and development that has accompanied the frame work is described and some of the salient features of the framework are noted, in particular the commitment to certain learning outcomes not easily measured in traditional outcomes-based systems. The article suggests that the rational development of the framework may be tested if the spontaneous energy that has been a characteristic of developments so far is constrained by too tight and formal a technical system.