http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk Quodlibs - The view from the ODL QC Chief Executive Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:39:57 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A Recognised Qualification Learners ask lots of questions.  It's not surprising.  Unravelling educational opportunities can be a baffling process. And if one tangle causes more angst, and generates more queries, than most, it must be "Will my qualification be recognised."   Alas, there are no simple answers. For starters, every year brings changes - ... http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk/?p=255 Fighting for Funding All the educational chatter this morning is about the funding of Higher Education.   Vince Cable and friends are flying kites for graduate taxes, two-year degrees and other whizzo-ways to save our money (or generate graduates on the cheap, depending upon which way you want to look ... http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk/?p=240 One of the "big ideas" of recent years, not just in this country but across Europe, has been for a qualifications framework. The need is clear.   Qualifications matter.   Qualifications are the route to jobs.   No qualifications, no job.  So the qualification industry grows inexorably, year on year. What's more, more and ... http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk/?p=224 NEC, the National Extension College, is merging with the Learning and Skills Network (LSN).   It will, says the Press Release, blend the wealth of nearly 50 years educational experience of NEC with LSN's grasp of new, education-led approaches to blended and online learning. Sounds good to me.   But ... http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk/?p=208 I'm feeling old this morning.   I think it was watching the Chancellor's budget speech that did it.      Osborne, Clegg, Cameron, Gove, Alexander - they all look so impossibly young.   Not real, grown-up politicians.   More like lost boys from the world of Peter Pan.   (Mind you, all the cheers, jeers and ... http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk/?p=185 Sadly, the new government seems to be getting into its stride. I say sadly, since I'm sure the best thing for education would be to declare it an initiative-free zone for the lifetime of this parliament. That way, all the thousand-and-one changes already inflicted upon it could settle down, and we could ... http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk/?p=169 The government, the funding agencies, awarding bodies, indeed  the whole educational establishment it seems, is on a quest to make education vocational.   Knights ride out into schools, colleges and universities throughout the land in an effort to slay the dragons of "education-for-its own-sake" and rescue the forlorn damsels of economic ... http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk/?p=143 Say you've just bought something expensive;  an extravagance.   If so, the odds are you'll be proud of your purchase, and want to show it off. But not if it's education.   Some parents spend a lot of money sending their kids to private schools.   But they rarely boast about it.   'Cos if ... http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk/?p=119 Power is dangerous stuff.   It corrupts.   What's more, the greater the power, the greater the risk.   Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We understand that.   That's why, in recent years, a whole regiment of regulatory overseers (or should that be overlookers?) have come into being, most with names that sound a bit off, ... http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk/?p=111 Winning through I hated sport at school.   Dismal afternoons of being bussed off to some bleak, windswept field that even the sheep shunned, just to kick a ball about for an hour.   Utterly pointless.   And nothing to do with education. Oh, but how wrong I was.   Not about the lack of learning;  ... http://www.odlqc-blog.org.uk/?p=109