Keyskills for all? The key skills qualification and Curriculum 2000

Abstract

It is widely recognized that the Key Skills Qualification - an important component of the Curriculum 2000 advanced level curriculum reforms - has experienced extensive problems during its first full year of implementation. This much is not in dispute. What is being keenly debated, however, are the ways in which this experience should be analysed and what lessons should be drawn. Is it a case of understandable ‘teething problems’ that will be overcome as the qualification ‘beds in’ or are there deeper and more fundamental problems of the purpose and design of the Key Skills Qualification for advanced level students? In order to address these questions, this article examines the Key Skills Qualification within its historical and policy context as well as bringing together a range of quantitative and qualitative evidence gathered as part of an Institute of Education (IOE)/Nuffield Foundation R esearch Project. The research suggests that while there is support for the concept of key skills, the Qualification has been met with considerable student and professional resistance due to its narrow skills focus and assessment regime within the context of increased study programmes at advanced level. We conclude that the Government's aim of ‘key skills for all’ at advanced level is unlikely to be achieved unless it takes a fundamentally different approach to policy in this area.