抄録
The General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQ) were developed and introduced in the United Kingdom from 1992 by the national government initiative with voluntary-based providing system (the coordinator is a quango, the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ)). The qualifications, of which 3 levels (equal status to GCSE and GCE A-level/AS-level) corresponding to the types of occupations which are available at present, are designed to certify broad competence integrating the contents of vocational and general education by modular system, which consists of the Core Skills Units (Communication, Application of Number, Information Technology, etc.) and Vocational Units. The aim of this implementation is improvement both of the vocational and the academic qualifications with narrow and partial qualities. The holders of GNVQ are expected to be competent workers who have flexibility to the social changes. GNVQ are also intended to be entrance qualifications for higher education as one of the main courses. GNVQ mainly have the following problems, (1) Guidance and consultation for the learners, (2) Whether the competence of the qualification holders actually comes to be the bases of learning in the future, (3) Inclination of becoming second-choice for learners with lower academic achivement, and (4) Manegement of the standard setting (epecially of the Core Skills). Although these problems have not been solved, GNVQ should keep on running because it is difficult to find an alternative. But from this case study, we should learn from the use of the resources of the exisiting instituitions concerned and the co-operation of the NVCQ, the national government, and the other instituitions, if we intend to develop the good qualifications in the good context of lifelong learning.
