ILM has revamped its qualifications to offer learners much greater flexibility when they want to hone their team leadership and management skills. The changes will enable training providers to design programmes that match individual learners’ and employers’ needs more closely. David Pardey, a member of the Qualifications Development Team responsible for the changes, explains what they have done, why they did it, and how the new qualifications will benefit managers, their organisations and training providers.
Learning has never been so flexible for managers and team leaders who want to get ahead – and never has there been so much choice. In the six years since it was established, ILM has become the biggest independent leadership and management awarding body in Europe, administering more of these qualifications than all the other awarding bodies in the UK put together. It has done this by keeping its qualifications under constant review – regularly consulting training centres, learners and employers to ensure that courses meet the needs of leaders and managers in fast-changing working environments – and the latest innovations are about to be rolled out at centres across the world.
The regulatory regime for qualifications is going through a major transition in England and ILM has taken this opportunity to offer greater flexibility to learners through a ‘unitised’ system. This simply means that qualifications are built up from free-standing units each focused on an individual topic. In roadshows up and down the country to spread the word to its qualification centres, June Hawkins, ILM’s Director of Qualifications and Learning Support, has been using the metaphor of Lego. She explains that each unit can be thought of as a brick and, like Lego bricks, units come in different sizes but always conform to a particular pattern so that they can be joined to a wide range of other units. They are designed to fit together easily according to simple ‘rules of combination’ to build different qualifications.
The advantages of the new system are greater flexibility in course content, easier progression between courses and levels – avoiding repetition – and the potential for training centres to develop tailor-made qualifications for particular sectors and roles. ‘Employers have warmly welcomed the new structure as a way of ensuring maximum benefit from their training budgets, allowing tailored programmes to meet specific business and individual needs,’ says Hawkins. ‘There is less duplication of study and managers can see their achievements accumulating as their careers develop.’
Part of the impetus for this change came from outside ILM: the National Qualifications Framework is being replaced by a new Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) for England, modelled on the system that already operates in Wales. The QCF introduces the concept of credits, but retains the levels of the old framework. Levels reflect how advanced the qualifications are, whereas credits are assigned to each unit on the basis of the average length of time a learner is expected to spend in order to achieve specified learning goals. The system is not yet in place in England, so with the agreement of the regulatory authorities the values currently assigned to units are described as ‘notional’.
One of the most noticeable changes in ILM’s new qualifications structure is the appearance of the term ‘Award’ in place of Introductory Certificates and Introductory Diplomas (the term ‘introductory’ is no longer allowed in the title of a qualification). Another key change is the appearance of both Certificates and Diplomas at Level 3 and above. This reflects the rules set by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority as part of the emerging Qualifications and Credit Framework for England. So ILM now offers three types of qualification: Awards, Certificates and Diplomas.
An Award should give people a grounding in the role of a team leader or manager at the appropriate Level. A Certificate should enable them to deal with most of the common demands faced by someone in their role, and a Diploma should develop them as a fully professional manager with the potential to move on to a higher Level.
Awards are defined as qualifications with up to 12 credits. Anything above this – up to 36 credits – is called a Certificate, and 37 or more credits makes it a Diploma. Any of these qualifications can feature at any level. So in the generic management qualifications, for example, there are Awards and Certificates at Levels 2, 3, 5 and 7. There are also Diplomas at Levels 3, 5 and 7, as well as new Awards at Levels 4 and 6, providing a bridge between Levels 3 and 5, and Levels 5 and 7, respectively.
Awards, Certificates and Diplomas in a particular subject have compulsory or ‘mandatory’ units in common, allowing them to fit neatly into each other like Russian dolls. This ‘nesting’ means that credits earned from taking an Award can be carried forward to the corresponding Certificate, credits from the Certificate can be carried forward to the Diploma, and sometimes to the next level up. There is no need for the learner to repeat the same units, avoiding any repetition of study and assessment as learners progress through the qualifications structure.
Building for the future
Credit where credit’s due
The credit value of a unit is based on the average length of time a learner is expected to spend in order to achieve specified learning outcomes.
This is a combination of guided learning hours – the formal time spent in seminars or workshops, or working through a Super Series workbook, for example – and the time needed to undertake additional learning and research (including research at work), practise skills and plan the application of what has been learned. Time spent on assessment is also included.
One credit is equal to ten hours of total or ‘notional’ learning time. So for example a unit that requires 12 hours of formal tuition might also involve around four hours of further reading, six hours of research in the workplace and on the internet, and some five hours spent on an assignment. This 27 hours will be worth three credits (the 27 hours is rounded to the nearest multiple of ten).
Nine levels of learning
The levels used by ILM fit into the original National Qualifications Framework, a nine-level system that applies across England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland has a slightly different set of levels).
The system starts at Entry Level, with subsequent levels then numbered from one to eight. Attaining Level 2 (which is where ILM’s Team Leading and some Enterprise units are set) is equivalent to achieving GCSE grades A-C. Level 3 courses are equivalent to GCE A-levels, and Levels 4 to 6 match the three years of an undergraduate degree. Courses at Level 7 are on a par with a postgraduate Masters degree, and taking a Level 8 course is equivalent to doing a doctorate. ILM’s highest qualifications are at Level 7.
In developing these new qualifications, great care has been taken to build on what was already being delivered successfully by centres. Although the units appear to be quite different, look closer and you will see that the ‘indicative content’ – what has to be learned to achieve the learning outcomes – is almost exactly the same as that of the segments of the existing qualifications. This is because most units were created by combining segments. For centres this means that existing programmes may need some revision but the same basic content can continue to be delivered. Where changes have been made this has been to tidy up overlaps or respond to what centres have told us is needed.
Centres can combine units from different levels into one qualification, but ILM has limited this so that all or most of the units in any one qualification are unique to a particular level, with just a few taken from one level below or above. This is because learners will tend to be working at more or less the same level across different areas of leadership and management responsibility.
The rules of combination – which govern how centres and learners join the units together – don’t simply say how many credits at any Level must be achieved to gain the qualification, but also specify some units that must be completed for that particular qualification. These mandatory units cover what ILM believes to be the essential core of the knowledge and skills required by leaders and managers at that particular level. The qualification consists of a selection of units from the list of those available at that level, providing centres and learners with a much greater degree of choice than has been available previously. ILM’s centres can design programmes that meet individual learners’ and employers’ needs much more closely while achieving consistency between different programmes. At the same time it enables ILM to ensure the quality of programmes through the common mandatory units.
The reaction to these developments from centres has been very enthusiastic. The feedback from their representatives at the roadshows suggests that while the changes are far-reaching, they believe the new system is more straightforward. There are going to be some hurdles to overcome as these qualifications are rolled out, but the response at the roadshows has been overwhelmingly positive. Suggestions for new units and for alternative combinations to meet specific needs are already being made, and ILM will do everything in its power to ensure that centres have the qualifications on offer to meet the needs of their customers.
So what happens next? From 1 October the Coaching and Mentoring qualifications will be unitised – a much simpler process than for some of the others as the design of these relatively new qualifications was informed by the likely development of the QCF. At the same time, extra units have been developed to enable learners to develop their expertise to become professional coaches. These new qualifications will be followed swiftly by unitised Leadership qualifications, with extra units and the potential to combine them with Management units in exciting new ways.
This last year has been both exhausting and exhilarating for the qualifications team at ILM as it has explored the opportunities that the new concepts and structures offer and dealt with some of the challenges presented by fitting the existing qualifications into the new way of working. In partnership with our centres across the world, we look forward to the continuing development of qualifications to reinforce ILM’s position as a leading force for innovation in leadership and management development.
Your flexible friends
Progression through nesting
ILM suites of qualifications at Levels 2, 3, 5 and 7 are ‘nested’ – taking the First Line Management as an example, this is how it works:
- The Level 3 Award requires five credits, including two credits from the mandatory unit M3.01 Solving Problems and Making Decisions.>
- The Level 3 Certificate requires 20 credits, seven of which are from four mandatory units, one of which is M3.01. All five credits from the Award count towards the 20 credits of the Certificate.
- The Level 3 Diploma requires 37 credits, including 13 credits from nine mandatory units, four being the mandatory units of the Certificate. All 20 credits from the Certificate count towards the Diploma.
- There is no need to repeat the assessment when the Award or Certificate credit is carried forward to a larger qualification.
Key benefits
- Greater flexibility for centres and learners – ILM only prescribes the mandatory units and their assessment, the remaining units and their assessment can be decided by centres in consultation with learners and employers
- Easier progression within and between levels – the ‘nesting’ of qualifications means that credit can easily be transferred from one type of qualification to another
- Greater flexibility in qualification development – new optional units can be added easily in response to market demand
- The potential to develop specialised qualifications – for particular sectors and roles