Sector Panel... and Qualifications for the future

There was a Sector Panel meeting on Wednesday morning. The Computing & Call Centres Sector Panel meets twice per year to discuss sectoral issues, such as employment trends and education issues. Members include SQA staff, Sector Skills Council representation, HMI, college staff, employers, and representatives of other national agencies (such as Learn Direct). Wednesday's agenda was interesting and included uptake in Computing and gender issues. Chris Morrow (of E-Skills) gave a particularly interesting talk on the forthcoming changes to the National Occupational Standards.

Speaking of which, I attended a meeting yesterday at Strathclyde University where Chris (and others from E-Skills) commenced a long process of engaging with employers, awarding bodies and other interested parties, on the new Standards. It's early days in the process but the proposed changes look good.

I finished the day at the Millennium Hotel in Glasgow where SQA has organised a Qualifications for the future masterclass. As part of the Curriculum for Excellence, we're looking at ways of modernising our qualifications and we have arranged a number of events where prominent educationalists speak about key educational developments. Yesterday, Professor Ray Land of Strathclyde University spoke about the effects of Web 2.0 on today's learners. His talk was very interesting and he made reference to some of my own writing on this area.