ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some of the key findings of a comparative study commissioned by the International Labour Organization, which attempted to understand more about the impact and implementation of national qualifications frameworks (NQFs). It also aims to include countries which were outside of the Anglophone tradition which has dominated a lot of NQF literature. The selected countries also represent a wide spread of levels of economic development, and a range of differences in terms of geographical and population size. Vargas Zuniga argues that the competency-based training systems in many of the countries can be seen as part of the long-term development of NQFs, and indeed, the English National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) were directly drawn on in both countries. South Africa has similarly struggled with stakeholder-based processes, after the failed attempt at an extremely inclusive and consultative approach. Educational research suggests that education and training are much more complicated processes than producing 'products' to specification.
