An issue that not infrequently causes a certain amount of confusion in the literature on qualifications and vocational training concerns the relationship between the term/concept National Professional Qualification System (NPQS) and the term/concept National Qualifications Framework (NQF). Are these different concepts or synonyms? When defined formally, they seem to involve two concepts that refer to clearly differentiated entities; however, at times their treatment in the literature on the subject, as well as the respective functions attributed to them, give the impression that they are practically the same thing.

The National (or international as the case may be) Qualification Framework, or NQF, is simply a structure or scale for ordering or classifying qualifications by levels, the number of which is established on a sovereign basis by a country or, if applicable, a group of countries. These levels are characterised through a series of descriptors (ordinarily types or classes of knowledge, skills or abilities, of autonomy and responsibility). The NQF orders and classifies any type of qualification (whether professional or academic).

For its part, the National Professional Qualification System (NPQS) is clearly also a structure, as is any system consisting of a structured interrelationship between components, but it is much more than a formal structure: it is an interrelated set of processes, products, instruments and standards that define, promote and establish how the professional qualifications required for undertaking productive processes (for products and services) are created; how these can be acquired; how they can be accredited and validated; and, lastly, how to obtain information and guidance for pursuing a professional career through them.

Definitively,

• on the one hand, the NQF is a mere outcome, resulting from a formal structure or scale that hierarchically orders qualifications by levels which makes it possible to attribute a level on this scale to each qualification established; while the NPQS is made up of a set of processes, outcomes, standards, methodological instruments, devices, etc. oriented towards improving the links between training and employment;
• on the other, the NPQS focuses on processes specifically related to professional qualifications (how they are established, how they are acquired, how they are validated, how to obtain information and guidance on them, etc.); while the levels established in an NQF are assigned or attributed to both professional qualifications and academic ones.

Read article

Francisco de Asis Blas y Paula Greciet (equipo asesor del programa EUROsociAL en la línea de acción "Apoyo al desarrollo de SNCPs en países latinoamericanos”)