Accessing Higher Educational Awards through National Vocational Qualifications in Management

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the experience of the University of Glamorgan Business School in offering competence‐based management awards since 1991. It considers how the publication of the management standards has impacted on the delivery of traditional management education and development programmes and, in particular, it considers whether the Management Charter Initiative, through the publication of national standards, has widened access to higher education. Using the Business School as a case study, it identifies and explores: how a traditional taught programme became more competence‐orientated; the development of a new qualification delivered through the medium of work‐based delivery and assessment; the method adopted to credit‐rate National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) in Management awards against traditional academic programmes; how students claiming advanced standing because of competence have fared when compared with students following the traditional route; whether advanced standing is justifiable on the basis of student performance. The performance of competence‐based students was compared with that of students who entered higher education through traditional routes. In particular, comparison focused on the postgraduate Diploma in Management Studies and the final year of the Master of Business Administration degree programmes. The research identified that the students who entered higher education through the non‐traditional competency route outperformed the traditional‐entry students in the majority of assessments. The research suggests, therefore, that it is possible to use competence‐based programmes to widen access to higher education without sacrificing the quality of performance expected of students at postgraduate level