The current provision
in colleges derives originally from a report of 1983 entitled 16-18s in
Scotland: An Action Plan. The Action Plan, later re-titled the 16+
Action Plan, envisaged a system of vocational education which would:
provide for 16-18-year-olds in colleges, on the Youth Training scheme and in voluntary community education classes;
rationalise both non-advanced and advanced further education provision and ensure that they related sensibly to each other;
use a modular curriculum as the basis of this rationalisation; and
develop the curriculum using up-to-date thinking on curriculum design and assessment.
The
module or unit, as it developed within this Action Plan, is a
self-contained or separately identified part of a course leading to a
"non-advanced" vocational qualification, that is, a National
Certificate or National Progression Award. It normally lasts 40 hours,
including time for ongoing assessment and any necessary re-teaching.
The descriptor of each module specifies a level of entry, i.e., the
knowledge and prior qualifications recommended before embarking on the
module. A course is made up of a number of modules which are taken
during a year. For example, apprentices released for one day a week to
attend a college would be able to take a 5- or 6-module course during a
year. Full-time students would take one of 18-21 modules.
The
SQA Catalogue of National Certificate modules (and National
Qualifications units) contains details of over 4,000 units and
classifies modular courses into the following 23 groups:
These groups indicate the very wide range of curricula offered by the colleges.
Universities and Higher Education Institutions
In
Scotland the normal pattern is for students studying for first degrees
in the majority of subject areas to spend three academic years in
attaining an Ordinary (i.e. General) degree or four years in attaining
an Honours degree involving greater specialisation. In some faculties,
for example in medicine and law, courses are longer. The number of
subjects studied and the time spent in lectures, tutorials and
practical work, in laboratories or in the field, varies enormously from
year to year within courses, from course to course within an
institution and from institution to institution.
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