Careers & Qualifications
Training and Qualifications
Overview
There is a plethora of courses and qualifications for people of all ages looking to start a career in IT and for IT professionals and users wanting to improve or add to their existing skills: from post-16 academic and vocational qualifications, work-based training, through to vendor and professional qualifications.
This section aims to give an idea (but in no way a comprehensive nor complete picture) of the type of courses and qualifications available and, to some extent, show how they relate to each other.
For a searchable database of courses in your area, go to
www.learndirect.co.uk
(for England and Wales) or to
www.learndirectscotland.com
(for Scotland).
At a national level, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA at
www.qca.org.uk
) is developing with its partner regulatory authorities in Wales (
www.accac.org.uk
) and Northern Ireland (
www.ccea.org.uk
) a coherent and transparent national framework of qualification (as shown in the table below) to guarantee quality and standards, meeting the full range of needs of learners and those who provide education, employment and training.
|
Level of qualification
|
General
|
Vocationally-related
|
Occupational
|
|
5
|
|
|
Level 5 NVQ
|
|
4
|
|
|
Level 4 NVQ
|
|
3
|
A level
|
Vocational
A level (Advanced GNVQ)
|
Level 3 NVQ
|
|
2
|
GCSE grade
A*-C
|
Intermediate GNVQ
|
Level 2 NVQ
|
|
1
|
GCSE grade
D-G
|
Foundation GNVQ
|
Level 1 NVQ
|
|
Entry Level
|
Certificate of educational achievement
|
QCA has also worked with their regulatory partner in Scotland (
www.sqa.org.uk
) to ensure that National Vocational Qualifications and Scottish Vocational Qualifications remain aligned based on national occupational standards.
Academic and vocational qualifications
Work-based training
Vendor and professional qualifications
In addition to academic and vocational qualifications and to work-based training programmes, there are also a wide range of product specific and professional qualifications, which have been developed by corporate organisations (such as Microsoft, Cisco, Novell, 3 Com etc) and by professional bodies (such as the British Computer Society, the Help Desk Institute or the Institute for the Management of Information Systems).
In collaboration with nto.telecom, QCA (Qualifications & Curriculum Authority) and SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority), e-skills NTO have worked with Microsoft, Cisco and Novel to link their qualifications with NVQs/SVQs, and show how they complement each other. The NTO has also recently worked with the Help Desk Institute and 3 Com to map their qualifications to the IT and IT Services NVQs/SVQs. For further information, go to the "
Prove you can do IT
" section.
Financial aid
Please see below for various ways to finance your training and studies.
General information on financial help is also available at
www.learndirect.co.uk
and
www.learndirectscotland.com
.
Information on financial aid in Further Education can also be found on the DfES website at
www.dfee.gov.uk/fhfe/fhfe/index.htm
.
|
