Perspectives on Tertiary Education and Prospects for the National Qualifications Framework (NQF)

Abstract

　 The paper reviewed the concepts of university-centric higher education, grasped the comprehensive perspective of ‘tertiary education’ from the standpoint of educational programmes rather than institutions, and presented an ideal continuum that contrasts academic and vocational elements across dimensions of ‘purpose’, ‘method’ and ‘control’, ranging from liberal arts education to vocational training. This was applied to the political consequences of the proposal of a vocational-practical framework within the professional university. The importance of ‘permeability’ between different realms is emphasised as a quality in multidimensional tertiary education. National Qualifications Frameworks (NQF) were compared as a tool to incorporate learning outcomes and vocational competencies. Notably, an NQF serves multiple purposes as a single policy tool, facilitating dialogue and coordination across various realms to achieve diverse goals in a chain-like manner. As an initial step towards a Japanese version of the NQF, the paper examined sectoral academic reference standards and vocational competence assessment standards. Through these investigations, it became clear that the Japan Association of Higher Education Research faces challenges of exploring perspectives from the centre to the periphery and vice versa in tertiary education.