The Role of Outcomes-Based National Qualifications in the Development of an Effective Vocational Education and Training System: The Case of England and Wales

This article analyses the increasingly diverse and sophisticated critique of ‘outcomes approaches’ in vocational qualifications; critique which has now moved well beyond the early claims of reductivism and behaviourism. Avoiding a naive position on extraction of points of consensus, this article attempts to extract key issues which have purchase on policy and practice relating to National Vocational Qualifications. It outlines not only the ways in which current policy and development processes associated with the qualifications may be defective, but also ways in which they might be enhanced. Crucially, the article points to the severe limitations of the concept of ‘competence’ which lies at the heart of outcomes approaches, and emphasises the need to reconsider a ‘formation’ model for initial vocational education and training, rather than a ‘competence’ model.