A comparative study of additional qualifications at the interface of initial and continuing education: findings from the United Kingdom

This paper draws upon findings from a project that is concerned with a comparative survey of 'additional qualifications' at the interface between initial training and continuing education and training. The functions of additional qualifications for companies, individuals and the VET system will be examined in general as well as in the sectors of print, retail and health. Overall additional qualifications can be used to enrich training programmes based around NVQs, or they could be used in the opposite way, bringing a particular vocational focus to more broadly-based learning programmes. Practice-based Masters programmes are one example of additional qualifications being used as 'locks' for innovation, whereby new types of more practice-oriented programmes are 'lifted' into the standardised education and training provision. With their emphasis upon management and supervision, as well as specialist practice, they can play a role in individual career development, whether the occupational mobility is horizontal, diagonal or vertical