The Austrian Qualifications Framework: level of implementation, goals and expectations

The "Federal Law on the National Qualifications Framework", which as currently planned is to enter into force on 1 January 2016, provides the basis for the assignment of qualifications to one of eight levels of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF). At the same time, it marks the end of a rather long development process with broad participation of the relevant stakeholder groups in which not only the structure of the NQF, the classification descriptors and the assignment process were discussed, but also the objectives and expectations associated with the NQF. The paper describes the NQF developments to date in the light of specific features of the Austrian education system and introduces a fan model for visualizing the equivalence of qualifications.