Following a major review of vocational education in the UK, the Vocational Qualification Reform Programme was introduced. A major part of this reform was the development of a new jointly regulated qualifications system known as the Qualifications and Credit Framework or QCF.
The scale of this reform held many challenges for the various partners involved in delivering the reform programmes, not least the need to maintain clear communication with a wide range of stakeholders including learning providers; awarding bodies; sector skills councils; education bodies and the regulators in three countries.
We used Message Sharpening with the QCF to gain a shared sense of ownership and responsibility for communication alongside a clear set of messages about the new system itself.
The project involved:
- Running research with priority audiences to understand what the benefits were to them of this new system
- Creating a messaging framework which brought focus and structure to the complexity
- Developing a toolkit of actual messages that different partner organisations could use in their communications
The QCF communications strategy and messaging framework formed a key part of the QCA’s final submission to Ministers in September 2008. This work is now being implemented via a multi-stakeholder team providing truly joined up communications for what is a highly complex initiative.