In our new blog series featuring our SCQF Quality Committee members, we speak to Steven Maclennan, development officer for the CLD Standards Council. The CLD Standards Council Scotland is the professional body for people who work or volunteer in community learning and development (adult learning, community development, and youth work) in Scotland.
- What attracted you to the role of SCQF Quality Committee Member?
I am Interested personally and professionally in supporting and maintaining standards. I strongly believe in the importance of the SCQF Partnership and its role in supporting the education sector in Scotland, especially around key aspects that the SCQF supports, like Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), the promotion of lifelong and life-wide learning and the framework’s support of the delivery of community-based learning activities, awards and opportunities.
- How long have you been working with the SCQF Quality Committee?
I have been working with the SCQF Quality Committee for just over three years and have been learning as I go. It has been fantastic to interact with other members of the committee as it’s a very diverse group of people from multiple sectors, backgrounds and skills.
- How did your work/life experience prepare you for the role?
As a qualified community learning and development worker, I’ve been involved with quality systems and processes, such as Qualifications Scotland and other awarding bodies, for most of my career.
My involvement with the SCQF Quality Committee was a natural progression from my role with the CLD Standards Council, which involves working with our Volunteer Committee members in the professional approval of courses and qualifications at all levels in Scotland.
I have found there are strong links and crossover between these roles, and sitting on the SCQF Quality Committee has given me a wider perspective of a quality framework and has enhanced my own practice.
It’s also fantastic to have the experience of working alongside colleagues from different parts of the education and business sectors and the SCQF Partnership executive team.
- In your opinion, why is the quality assurance aspect of the work that the SCQF Partnership does so crucial?
Maintaining the credibility and integrity of the SCQF is really important as it’s the key benchmark within our wider Scottish education system that also has important national and international links.
The importance of SCQF levels and their descriptors can’t be underestimated, allowing for cross-comparison of qualifications across the UK and internationally, as well as helping to provide a system of RPL.
Ensuring that the SCQF is robust and measured is critical in ensuring that qualifications and learning opportunities are understood using a common language which recognises the amount, difficulty and length of learning that learners have undertaken.
It ensures that employers and learning providers are able to understand what learning individuals have undertaken and allows for the progression of that learner in a work or educational environment.
- What is your most interesting quality assurance-related fact?
That there are over 10,500 qualifications on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF), encompassing a wide variety of awards that can be undertaken in Scotland. If your learning programme is not yet on the SCQF, is it worth exploring if it should be? Yes!