ABSTRACT
The Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) is a 'first generation' qualifications framework that was established in 1995. Its purpose was to create 'a comprehensive, nationally consistent yet flexible framework for all qualifications in post-compulsory education and training'. It encompasses all post-compulsory qualifications in Australia which includes senior school certificates, vocational education and training (VET) qualifications and higher education qualifications. The Australian Qualifications Framework Council (AQFC) which will eventually be situated within a new, stronger national regulatory body that will first have responsibility for higher education and later for VET. This chapter provides a broad context for the development of national qualifications frameworks (NQFs) in Anglophone countries. Raffe explains that common global trends have given rise to similar pressures for the convergence of vocational and general education in post-16 education, and to common policy rhetoric: the knowledge economy, lifelong learning, parity of esteem, flexibility of pathways.
