Indicating the GQF level on the leaving certificates

The German Qualifications Framework stands for transparency and mobility. Its objective is to allow for comparing educational certificates with each other and with European educational certificates in order to improve transnational exchange on the training and labour markets. These are comparatively abstract goals. But how can the GQF be made tangible to the individual? A major step in that direction would be to indicate the GQF level on leaving certificates. This article deals with the issues still to be clarified in order to implement this measure.

The information campaigns carried out for the purpose of increasing awareness and acceptance of the GQF usually focus primarily on the more abstract goals and on the general referencing of educational certificates to the GQF levels. However, if the GQF is to have an effect on the individual and to be profitably utilised by the individual, it is necessary to establish a concrete relation between the individually acquired educational certificate and the GQF.

The GQF level should therefore be indicated on the personal proof of qualification - the leaving certificate. In this way, graduates could put their personally acquired educational certificate in the context of the GQF structure and thus better evaluate themselves with regard to possible further education, other courses of training and/or job offers. In the job market, in particular, they get the opportunity to establish and present the relation to other educational certificates in the structural context of the relevant education system. This is helpful, for example, if the individual's educational certificate is unknown to a potential employer abroad.
It was already stipulated in the Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008¹ that measures were to be adopted so that by 2012 all new qualification certificates issued via the national qualification systems would contain a clear reference to the applicable EQF level.

While on vocational school leaving certificates the relevant references are to be provided by the Länder, it lies within the responsibility of the competent bodies to provide such supplements on their leaving certificates. The prerequisites for this were created with the amendment of the model examination regulations adopted by the BIBB Board on 13 December 2012 (cf. Spillner 2013). Based on these model examination regulations, the competent bodies adopt or amend their respective examination regulations which, in turn, are the basis for the issuance of the leaving certificates. Included in the model examination regulations was the provision that the "examination certificate ... must contain an indication of the preliminary classification of the certificate in the German Qualifications Framework (GQF) and the EQF level resulting from referencing the GQF to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF)".² This amendment to the model examination regulations was published in the German Federal Gazette on 25 January 2013. It is an appeal to the competent bodies to adapt their respective examination regulations. And this appeal is being heeded by the competent bodies. The willingness to indicate the GQF level on the leaving certificates exists despite several issues that still need to be addressed.

Some issues need to be resolved before the GQF level can be indicated on all leaving certificates. One question that is asked again and again concerns the legal basis of the GQF and the GQF referencing. The first references for educational qualifications were established on 31 January 2012 by way of an informal declaration of the top representatives of the Federal and Länder governments and the social partners. This included, for example, the referencing of initial vocational education and training based on the regular duration of training.³ Following this declaration the GQF Working Group (cf. Esser 2012, p. 47), which unites all decisive stakeholders, has suggested that all relevant participants issue a formal declaration to provide a more binding character to the referencing. As a result, a joint resolution of KMK, BMBF, BMWi and the Conference of Ministers of Economic Affairs was adopted (May 2013) creating the citability necessary for the concrete phrasing of the GQF level indication on the leaving certificates. As a joint federal and Länder resolution it has from the strictly legal point of view a higher judicial standing than the abovementioned declaration of 31 January 2012.

The use of uniform phrasing on the relevant proof of qualification for indicating how the individual educational certificate is referenced to a GQF level is also considered helpful. The model examination regulations as amended by the BIBB Board only refer to indication of the GQF referencing as such. They make no specific provision for how it should be phrased. The phrasing on leaving certificates for completed vocational education and training within the dual system should be coordinated, for example, between the umbrella organisations of the chambers and passed on to the chambers. In the interest of uniformity the same phrasing should be used for other competent bodies and also across educational sectors.

However, not all educational certificates in vocational education and training have been referenced to a GQF level so far. In the field of further education, for example, it is not possible to draw on the duration of training with the same plausibility as in the field of initial training. Thus a separate assessment is needed here that relates the acquired further education certificate to other further or higher education certificates. The referencing of the upper secondary school leaving certificate to the GQF levels is also still pending.⁴

Last but not least, a full implementation of the GQF requires the enactment of a collective amending regulation for further education certificates pursuant to § 53 BBiG/§ 42 HwO.

Irrespective of these issues still to be clarified and referencing still to be made, however, it will be considered innocuous if educational qualifications that have been referenced without dispute are indicated already at this stage on the proof of qualification. For example, starting this year the BIBB directory of recognised training occupations indicates the GQF level of initial vocational education and training programmes. In the places where graduates and companies can benefit already from the intended supranational comparability of educational certificates, they should be allowed to do so. No one can say at this point, however, when the GQF level will first be indicated on leaving certificates in vocational education and training. In the end, hurdles still exist that are unrelated to content issues, such as the technical changeover of the certificate forms. Here, too, the time required must be planned.

The important thing is to implement that complex and still new instrument, the GQF, step by step and to make any adjustments wherever it is already possible to do so. The clarification of the outstanding issues can be undertaken parallel to that.

The above-mentioned upcoming information campaigns on the dissemination of the GQF and the referencing of qualifications to the GQF levels will in any case be helpful for the goal of having the specific GQF level indicated on a leaving certificate. Because in addition to graduates of initial vocational education and training, potential employers in particular should have knowledge of the EQF/GQF as a tool for assessing the competence of potential job candidates. Via information campaigns on the EQF/GQF in general, in the case of proofs of qualification greater attention can also be drawn to concrete references to levels and thus to their usefulness in practice. They are thus an important component of the realisation of the GQF objectives.

JOHANNA MÖLLS
Head of the “Legal Affairs/Organization/ Quality Development” Division at BIBB

Translation from the German original (published in BWP 3/2013): Paul David Doherty, Global Sprachteam Berlin