Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) is the executive public body of Scottish government responsible for accrediting educational awards and is accredited by the UK government to offer educational qualifications. Being one of the four partner national organisations in the Curriculum for Excellence, SQA’s designs and develops new qualifications and assessments, validates qualifications and reviews them to ensure they are up to date. It has created the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF).
The SCQF supports lifelong learning and can help:
People of all ages and circumstances to access appropriate education and training over their lifetime, so as to fulfil their personal, social and economic potential
Employers, learners and the general public to understand the full range of Scottish qualifications, how qualifications relate to each other and to other forms of learning, and how different types of qualification can contribute to improving the skills of the workforce.
The SCQF helps describe both programmes of learning and qualifications, support the development of progression routes and maximise the opportunities to transfer credit points between qualifications to ensure that a learner does not have to repeat any learning they have already undertaken. The SCQF also helps to illustrate the relationships between Scottish qualifications and those in the rest of the UK, Europe and beyond, which can clarify opportunities for international progression routes and credit transfer.
