Feasibility and Challenges on a National Qualifications Framework and Permeability in Education and Training System in Japan

Abstract

A National Qualifications framework (NQF) is an important policy tool needed to achieve higher levels of transparency and permeability between academic and vocational pillars in education and training system. The NQF helps to guarantee the quality of education and training programs based on learning outcomes approaches. In this chapter, the feasibility and challenges of a NQF in Japan is explored based on the comparisons of NQF development in Anglophone countries as early starters of domestic interests, in second generation of Continental European countries that required international currency with European Qualifications Framework (EQF), and in East Asian countries with culturally unique traditions. The following elements related to NQF are considered: the societal contexts, the policy development, and the future challenges. The level descriptors have become more common in many NQFs as influenced by EQF approaches, covering both vocational and academic tracks vertically and horizontally. Thus, the NQF approach may have a powerful influence toward a globalization of education and training. It is questioned what are the current challenges and how countries are reforming the education and training system. In Japan, at the initial education phase, there are diversified qualifications and sectors in tertiary education system. As like the other East Asian countries, under the “academic credentialism,” education programs tend to be more diversified and hierarchically recognized, rather than transparent with certain standardization. At the further training phase, labor policies have been stimulating a shift from firm-specific certifications to those more standardized by industries. The further challenge is how to tune such the occupational certifications toward education and training programs by the field of industries and by the field of education.