The history of National Occupational Standards

The concept of employer led National Occupational Standards emerged in the mid eighties following a number of reports that vocational qualifications offered at that time were not meeting employer needs, there were no recognised quality assurance checks and there was no coherence in the provision.

A Government backed review of vocational training proposed that employers should be involved in setting out a statement of competence to
bring together the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to undertake a particular function. The idea being that if qualifications were based on such statements developed by the employers then they would be relevant to their needs, be a good basis for up-skilling the workforce and would give potential users of the qualifications confidence that obtaining such qualifications would be valued in the employment sector.

The Government of the time accepted this concept and funded significant activity through the then sector based organisations, normally National Training Organisations (NTOs) to develop these statements of competence known as National Occupational Standards (NOS). This programme has continued through successive Administrations 

Given the concern on the lack of quality control of vocational qualifications the review also led to the formation in the late eighties of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications. This body was charged with approving competence based qualifications for use in England Wales and Northern Ireland, to be known as National Vocational Qualifications, based on NOS. In Scotland the responsibility for such qualifications was vested with the Scottish Vocational Education Council. The qualifications became known as National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and in Scotland Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQs)

Approved NVQs and SVQs have been developed and reviewed over the past fifteen years and are widely used particularly but not exclusively at levels two and three in most sectors of industry. They form a key component of apprenticeship schemes as well as up-skilling and re-skilling employees. There is a mix of N/SVQs covering cross sector occupations such as administration and management as well as sector specific qualifications such as our Vehicle Parts Operation. Over this period the principles of assessment related to these qualifications have been subject to considerable review and so the awards are now much easier to access and more employer friendly than some of the earlier S/NVQs.
 

The emphasis on the development of S/NVQs, important though it was, could be argued detracted during the nineties from one of the original aims of the NOS programme which was to inform the content of vocational qualifications rather than only focus on one type of qualification provision. Two more recent developments have started to redress this balance. Firstly responsibility for developing and approving standards, as distinct from qualifications, is moving to the Sector Skills Development Agency. Secondly, the newly constituted Sector Skills Councils such as Automotive Skills are expected to develop with their employers a range of provision to meet current and potential skill requirements.

NOS are perceived as being critical in this development of provision to meet skill needs as they continue to articulate competences required by employers from those at work. However, by distancing standards from S/NVQs their value in informing other skills development activity should be more apparent. The next section summarises some of the uses of NOS in addition to their continuing role as being the basis of S/NVQs.