NC Technical Support

I attended a validation event yesterday, at the City of Glasgow College, to serve on the validation panel as the SQA representative.

The college had devised a new National Certificate award, at SCQF Levels 5 and 6, which relates to the more technical aspects of the subject, entitled National Certificate Computing: Technical Support. It was designed to articulate to the more technical HN awards, such as HNC/D Computer Networking.

The purpose of a validation event is for a group of independent experts to review the proposals to ensure that new qualifications are needed and valid. The panel was led by Walter Patterson, ex-HMI, and the Qualification Development Team was led by Margaret McKellar, of the college. Other members of the panel included representatives of E-Skills, industry, Higher Education, Further Education, and SQA (myself). Although the proposals received a thorough scrutiny from the panel, the qualifications were approved subject to a few conditions and recommendations.

The new National Certificate in Computing: Technical Support at SCQF Levels 5 and 6 should be available to all centres from August 2011. Contact Margaret if you want to know more about this new award.