Research and analysis

Origins and Evolution of the CASLO Approach in England - Chapter 1: Introduction

Published 18 November 2024

Applies to England

There is a lack of organisational memory regarding past policies and programmes in the skills landscape, resulting in an inability to learn lessons.

(City & Guilds, 2014, page 13)

A lack of policy memory in England’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector is widely recognised as a cause for concern (Higham & Yeomans, 2007; City & Guilds, 2014; 2016; 2019; Norris & Adam, 2017; Laczik, Dabbour, Patel, & Wilson, 2023).^{[footnote 1]} This is often associated with the frequent churn of officials across government departments and the Civil Service more generally, not to mention the churn of government departments and administrative agencies that occurs over a slightly longer timescale. Churn affects awarding organisations too. All of this churn means that, the longer an assessment system or process has been in place, the harder it will be to locate anyone who understands exactly how or why it was established in the first place, particularly when the period since its introduction is long enough for those originally responsible for its introduction to have retired. This lack of policy memory is compounded by the transience of policy documentation. Although the internet and electronic archives have improved matters, it can still be remarkably hard to locate key policy documents from decades past, especially those produced by administrative agencies that have folded.

Scholarly accounts of the policy landscape help to counteract this lack of policy memory. An important example of relevance to the present report is the book ‘Government, Markets and Vocational Qualifications’ by Peter Raggatt and Steve Williams (Raggatt & Williams, 1999). But texts like this are few and far between, and they tend to focus more on the sociopolitical context than on the technical detail of qualification and assessment policy.

The present report is different because it is concerned precisely with the technical detail of qualification and assessment policy, focusing specifically on the TVET landscape in England from the 1960s to the present day. Even more specifically, it focuses on a particular approach to TVET qualification design, which became widespread during the 1990s, and which came to dominate the regulated qualifications market during the 2010s. This is the CASLO approach.

The CASLO approach

The CASLO approach is a high-level template for designing qualifications – perhaps even a high-level philosophy of qualification design – that is both outcome-based and mastery-based. Outcome-based approaches insist that qualifications ought to be designed on the basis of an authentic and comprehensive specification of the set of learning outcomes that collectively comprises an intended domain of learning. Mastery-based approaches insist that only those students who have demonstrably mastered the full domain of learning should pass the qualification.^{[footnote 2]} We contrast CASLO qualifications with ‘classical’ ones, like GCSEs and A levels, which are neither outcome-based nor mastery-based.^{[footnote 3]}

We have identified 3 core characteristics that are shared by all qualifications within the CASLO family:

1. unit content is specified in terms of learning outcomes (whereas classical qualification content is specified in terms of topics that need to be taught)
2. the unit standard is specified via assessment criteria for each learning outcome (whereas classical qualification standards are holistic, based on mark totals)
3. to pass each unit, a learner must acquire all of the specified learning outcomes, which we refer to as the mastery requirement (whereas classical qualifications do not make requirements concerning specific outcomes)

This also suggests that CASLO qualifications tend to be segmented into units, which is true, although the idea of a single-unit CASLO qualification is entirely legitimate.

As this approach came to dominate the qualifications market in England, it was incorporated into a wide variety of qualifications serving many different purposes in many different contexts. It therefore became an extremely broad family, yet still mainly restricted to the TVET landscape. Until just recently, this family had no distinguishing name. We decided to call them ‘CASLO’ qualifications because they are designed to Confirm the Acquisition of Specified Learning Outcomes (Newton & Lockyer, 2022).

As we shall see, the CASLO approach came to prominence in England during the 1980s and into the 1990s with the introduction of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs). By the mid-2010s, it had become the default high-level template for designing regulated TVET qualifications. Although dominant in the landscape by this time, aspects of the approach were criticised in a number of high profile policy reviews. Since then, policy making has tended not to promote the CASLO approach, and in some instances has proscribed it. This raises questions concerning the future of the approach in England.

Unfortunately, there is a deficit of scholarship related to the CASLO approach, which compounds the lack of policy memory and frustrates effective policy making, not to mention effective qualification design, development, and delivery. When NVQs were introduced they attracted a lot of attention from scholars of education. This resulted in a substantial corpus of conceptual critique, but also in a significant body of empirical research. When General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) were introduced a few years later, they also stimulated both conceptual analysis and empirical research related to the approach. Since then, however, there has been little in the way of relevant research and analysis, despite the increasing dominance of the CASLO approach within the TVET landscape.

What this means is that research and analysis have (to date) provided only limited insights into the validity of CASLO qualifications, and into their educational or societal impacts, whether positive or negative. Furthermore, it is unclear how far we can generalise from the insights that we do have – based mainly upon research into NVQs and GNVQs from the 1990s – to regulated CASLO qualifications of the 2020s.

The present report is part of the solution to this deficit of scholarship. It sets out to explain how and why the CASLO approach was first introduced in England, how it came to dominate the TVET landscape, and why it began to fall out of favour with policy makers in recent years. It aims to identify what lessons can be learnt from this trajectory.

Analysis

The work that underpinned this report was predominantly desk-based. This involved studying a variety of documents from the early 20th century to the present day, including:

• articles and books that addressed contemporary debates, as well as some with a more historical bent
• reports, articles, and books that presented original research and evaluation studies
• policy and guidance documents produced by government departments and administrative bodies, including official policy reviews
• publications produced by awarding organisations, including policy statements, communications for centres, and qualification syllabuses or specifications

The aim of the research was to understand the origins and evolution of the CASLO approach in England, within the broader context of training and qualification policies and practices from the 1960s to the present day. This focus helped to make the literature searching and reviewing tractable. Having said that, the story of the CASLO approach is a large part of the story of regulated TVET qualifications in England over the past 3 or 4 decades, so this is a vast literature, impossible to review in its entirety. Triangulating insights from multiple documents was central to the analytical approach, particularly for the period from the 1960s to the 1990s. A few resources proved to be especially useful on particular topics. Where these resources were relied upon heavily, this is made clear in the report.^{[footnote 4]}

In trying to make sense of the 1986 Review of Vocational Qualifications, Hargraves (2000) explained that his analytical approach focused on the influence of individual members of the review group. He contrasted his approach with that adopted by Raggatt & Williams (1999), who chose to focus on the influence of key institutions. The focus of the present report is less upon unpacking micro influences on policy formation – whether associated with individuals or institutions – and more upon clarifying the macro rationales that underpinned successive policies and practices, in order to understand the origins and evolution of the CASLO approach in detail.

Our focus on policy is significant to the extent that adoption of the CASLO approach was driven heavily by government, through administrative bodies such as the Technician Education Council, the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, and Ofqual, to name just a few. Although hugely significant in its own right, the approach has always remained just one element of a broader, ongoing policy mission to bring order to what policy makers have often characterised as a disordered ‘jungle’ of TVET qualifications.^{[footnote 5]} So, identifying exactly what the CASLO approach was intended to achieve within this broader policy matrix is challenging, as critical details were not always spelt out in policy documents. Consequently, although the present report is not a defence of TVET qualification policy decisions, it is an attempt to make sense of them, and of how they translated into CASLO qualification practices.

Focus

The story of the CASLO approach intersects with many related stories, to which we cannot do justice within the parameters of the present report. The NVQ model was influential internationally, and versions of it were adopted in New Zealand, Australia, Finland, South Africa, the Persian Gulf, and elsewhere (West, 2004). Outcome-based approaches have also become influential internationally in higher education settings (Cedefop, 2009; Stanley, 2015; Cedefop, 2016). Unfortunately, space and time constraints prevent us from considering either of these important outgrowths.

Even related developments in England that ran in parallel with the introduction of NVQs – concerning Records of Achievement, national curriculum assessment, and GCSE and A level grading standards – have received only limited coverage. Similarly, our analysis is framed in terms of developments in England, despite those developments often operating in tandem with policies and practices in Wales and Northern Ireland, particularly prior to devolution, and to some extent paralleling developments in Scotland too.

Though we focused purely upon the TVET landscape in England (excluding the higher education sector) we still had to restrict our purview somewhat. Our story revolves specifically around the CASLO approach, which means that important TVET qualification and assessment developments that did not add a great deal to this story have not been discussed. For instance, although we have committed considerable space and time to the rise and fall of the GNVQ, we have not discussed the Diploma qualification – which followed in its wake during the 2000s – as it was not based on the CASLO approach. Likewise, Technical Qualifications that sit within the T Level model also function more like classical qualifications in certain key respects, and therefore receive little attention.

Lastly, it is important to recognise the significance of policy issues that intersected with debates concerning the CASLO approach, but that remained logically distinct, such as the threat to liberal education posed by the ‘new vocationalism’ of the 1980s (Pring, 1995; Stanton, 2012), or the threat to teacher autonomy posed by the shift away from locally developed syllabuses that started during the late 1970s (Bowe & Whitty, 1984), and the establishment of a national curriculum during the late 1980s (McCulloch, 2001). Again, although issues such as these are certainly relevant to debates concerning CASLO qualifications, space and time constraints prevented us from exploring linkages in any depth.

Balance

We have already mentioned the substantial corpus of conceptual critique that emerged during the late-1980s and early-1990s in direct response to the introduction of NVQs, which constitutes a significant chunk of the academic literature on the CASLO approach. This is problematic because, as already noted, it is unclear how far it is possible to generalise from this body of work to current CASLO qualifications.

The NVQ model was an extreme manifestation of the CASLO approach, with a radical approach to specifying learning outcomes (in terms of occupational competence) that took the brunt of academic criticism during the early-1990s. In addition, many scholars saw the introduction of NVQs as an attempt by the government to disempower education providers, which may have further polarised the critique. The passion, if not anger, apparent in many of these early debates has been noted by numerous commentators (see Bates, 1995; Ecclestone, 1997; Hargraves, 2000). Hodkinson reflected:

One of the dangers in the current debate over competence is that the polarisation identified at the beginning of this paper could result in us throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

(Hodkinson, 1992, page 36)

Acutely aware of this polarisation in the literature, we have attempted to be fair-minded in our reconstruction of events, recognising the importance of not throwing babies out with bathwater. As such, we have attempted to do justice to the extent of the problems that beset the introduction of outcome-based qualifications during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, while also explaining why their introduction might still have made a lot of sense to many stakeholders.

Particularly in recent years, there has been a tendency for scholars to treat the NVQ model as though it reflected the essence of all outcome-based approaches. The implication is that, by striking at the heart of the NVQ model, we strike at the heart of the outcome-based approach, per se, and therefore at the heart of the CASLO approach too. On this basis, certain scholars have concluded that outcome-based qualifications are simply not fit for purpose.

Conversely, we think that a more historical analysis reveals that the NVQ model was quite unusual as an outcome-based approach – departing significantly from its ancestors as well as from its descendants – particularly given the uncompromising nature of its early competence model. Rather than embodying the essence of all outcome-based models, NVQs were an idiosyncratic manifestation of what we now describe as the broader CASLO approach, which itself is an idiosyncratic manifestation of the even broader outcome-based approach.^{[footnote 6]} We reflect on whether the problems that became associated with NVQs, GNVQs, and other CASLO qualifications are best understood as inevitable consequences of an unworkable model – as some of the more strident critics have argued – or whether they might alternatively be understood as avoidable consequences from poor implementation. It is fair to say that both NVQs and GNVQs were poorly implemented.

The present report goes to considerable lengths to unravel the multiplicity of goals that drove NVQ designers, and designers of other qualifications, to adopt the CASLO approach. This emphasis arose from 2 related observations. First, the CASLO approach was fundamental to the NVQ model, but far from exhausted its innovative design features. So, the NVQ model was driven by goals that went beyond those that drove the CASLO approach specifically. Second, the NVQ model was fundamental to TVET qualification reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, but it was not the only initiative within these reform programmes. We have already mentioned that NVQs were just one part of a broader set of policy initiatives designed to rationalise TVET qualification systems in England. So, it is hard to unpick from the literature – even the literature that focuses specifically on policy goals of the period – exactly which goals the NVQ model, per se, was intended to achieve. Ambiguity of this sort is even more significant for qualifications that were to inherit or adapt the CASLO approach from NVQs during subsequent decades.

We suggest that there are at least 3 distinct perspectives on the goals that drove adoption of the CASLO approach (with distinct goals clustered within each):

1. the certification perspective – to improve the technical quality of assessment (validity)
2. the educational perspective – to improve teaching, learning, uptake, completion, and so on
3. the sociopolitical perspective – to improve the structure of the TVET system

Perhaps understandably, many scholars have focused on unpacking the more subterranean sociopolitical goals underpinning the introduction of outcome-based qualifications (Raggatt & Williams, 1999; Young, 2008). Indeed, some of the more sociological analyses suggest that sociopolitical goals were paramount in explaining their introduction (Young & Allais, 2009; 2011).

The present report attempts to complement analyses of this sort by clarifying goals that ought, in theory, to have been less subterranean – educational goals in particular – but that, in practice, seem not to have been articulated quite as clearly and transparently as they might have been. This attempt to understand rationales for adopting the CASLO approach (and outcome-based approaches more generally) is important because it behoves us to consider whether or not these rationales are just as important today as they might have seemed in previous decades.

Chapters

The story that we will tell revolves around:

• organisations that were responsible for embedding outcome-based qualification models and the CASLO approach more specifically – including the Technician Education Council (TEC) and the Business Education Council (BEC), which merged to become the Business and Technician Education Council (BTEC), the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ), the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), and so on
• the qualifications that they introduced – including TEC awards, BEC awards, BTEC awards, National Vocational Qualifications, General National Vocational Qualifications, and so on
• qualification frameworks that embedded the CASLO approach – most notably the NVQ framework and the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF)

We identify NVQs, which were introduced during the late-1980s, as the first CASLO qualifications of national prominence. However, TEC and BEC awards, which were introduced during the mid- to late-1970s, were also outcome-based and were critical precursors to the CASLO approach.

We have divided the report into chapters on a roughly chronological basis. Chapter 2 begins by surveying the TVET landscape during the 1960s, in relation to existing qualification systems but also in relation to training more generally, as both halves of this story are important to understanding the origins of the CASLO approach. It also identifies long-standing problems with training and qualifications that help to explain why the approach was adopted. The TEC and the BEC were established during the early-1970s to help solve problems of this sort, and they embedded the concept of outcome-based qualifications (although other awarding organisations were also experimenting with similar ideas). Chapter 2 ends by exploring the wider sociopolitical context of the 1980s prior to the introduction of NVQs, and by tracing the intellectual roots of the CASLO approach back through various North American educational movements.

Chapter 3 explains the crystallisation of the CASLO design template through the introduction of NVQs during the late-1980s. Soon after, it became the design template for GNVQs and for BTEC awards. Chapter 3 explores the design and implementation of each of these 3 qualification types in detail, considering their successes and their failures, as well as how they evolved over time.

Chapter 4 explains how the CASLO approach proliferated during the 2000s (under the National Qualifications Framework) and during the 2010s (under the Qualifications and Credit Framework). While the NQF was positively disposed toward the approach, the QCF made it an accreditation requirement. As QCF qualifications came to dominate the market, it became obvious how dominant the CASLO approach had become. By the mid-2010s, the vast majority of regulated pre-university qualifications in England incorporated the CASLO approach. We explore the route to the QCF by considering the rise of the Credit Movement in England during the 1990s, and the influence of the Open College Network approach.

In Chapter 5, we pause to take stock, and the report becomes more analytical. Reflecting on the story so far, and the documentary analysis that underpinned this project, we attempt to unpick the goals that appear to have driven adoption of the CASLO approach (and outcome-based approaches more generally) over the decades. We identify 4 key educational goals, related to improving:

1. domain alignment – to align curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment as closely as possible with the intended domain of learning (and therefore also with each other)
2. domain mastery – to ensure that all students achieve a satisfactory level of attainment across the full domain of learning
3. qualification efficiency – to make the process of becoming qualified as efficient as possible
4. domain personalisation – to enable the domain of learning to be tailored to the personal situation, interests, or needs of learners (or customised to meet the needs of local employers)

We then explain how these goals appear to have been more or less relevant to the qualifications and qualification frameworks described in Chapters 2 to 4.

Chapter 6 confronts the recent history of the CASLO approach through the lens of 5 key policy reviews commissioned between 2010 and 2015: the Wolf review of 14 to 19 vocational education, the Richard review of apprenticeships, the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning, the Whitehead review of adult vocational qualifications, and the Sainsbury review of technical education. While none of these reviews focused specifically on the CASLO approach, each one had something critical to say on the matter. These reviews help to explain why the CASLO approach has fallen out of favour with policy makers in recent years. They precipitated a review of the QCF itself, which was withdrawn in 2015. From that point on, no qualification in England has been required by the regulator to adopt the approach. Where awarding organisations have continued to use it, it has effectively been their choice to do so (although their decision may have been influenced by key stakeholders, such as professional bodies).

Chapter 7 concludes with lessons that we have learnt from our investigation into the origins and evolution of the CASLO approach concerning: the approach itself, its fitness for purpose, and TVET qualification reform more generally. We note that the CASLO approach has tended to be conceptualised and operationalised quite narrowly and rigidly over the years, and we wonder whether it is now time to think about outcome-based and mastery-based approaches more broadly and creatively.

Synopsis

This penultimate introductory section aims to explain exactly what this report is all about – the CASLO approach – and to explain exactly what we mean by it. Exactitude is important, here, because the level of analysis that we have adopted – the design template level – is quite unusual. It is far more common for research projects to be pitched at the level of a particular qualification (A level physics, for example) or at the level of a particular qualification type (General National Vocational Qualification, for example). The present analysis is pitched at a much higher level of analysis because it concerns core characteristics that, at the outset of our research programme, were common across a very large number of very widely divergent qualification types. Part of the mystery that we wanted to solve was why this happened to be the case.

CASLO qualifications are easy to spot because the heart of each CASLO unit specification tends to look like this (albeit with variable numbers of learning outcomes and assessment criteria):

Learning Outcomes (The learner will…)	Assessment Criteria (The learner can…)
LO 1   [xxx]	AC 1.1   [xxx] AC 1.2   [xxx]
LO 2   [xxx]	AC 2.1   [xxx] AC 2.2   [xxx]
LO 3   [xxx]	AC 3.1   [xxx] AC 3.2   [xxx]

As such, the substance of each CASLO unit specification comprises a list of learning outcomes, which set out what a learner will need to be able to do, to know, to understand (or suchlike) in order to pass the qualification. And, for each learning outcome, a corresponding set of assessment criteria explains the basis for confirming that each learning outcome has been acquired, in terms of what the learner will need to have demonstrated. To be awarded a CASLO qualification, a learner will need to have achieved all specified learning outcomes across all relevant units, and this will typically require them to have satisfied all of the criteria for all of the outcomes.

We introduced the concept of a CASLO qualification back in 2022 to allow us to refer to the very many qualifications that we regulated that were based on this high-level design template, which stipulates:

1. tightly specified outcomes
2. tightly specified criteria
3. a stringently applied mastery principle

This (and nothing more) encapsulates what we mean by the CASLO approach. It is true that these core characteristics are often associated with other design features, including a substantial amount of college-based or work-based assessment. But it is important to emphasise that CASLO qualifications differ widely in terms of their stated purposes, design features, and implementation processes. Again, this was part of the mystery that we wanted to solve – why exactly the same design template came to underpin a plethora of very differently conceived qualifications.

On one level, the mystery proved not to be very mysterious at all. During the late 1980s, the CASLO approach was specified as an accreditation criterion for any qualification that was to be part of the NVQ framework. At that time, it was anticipated that all technical and vocational qualifications would end up being accredited to this framework, and many were.^{[footnote 7]} Furthermore, during the late 2000s, the CASLO approach was specified as an accreditation criterion for any qualification that was to be part of the QCF. Once again, it was anticipated that all regulated technical and vocational qualifications would end up being accredited to this framework, and the vast majority were.^{[footnote 8]} So, in a very important sense, the proliferation of the CASLO approach in England is directly attributable to the intervention of government-sponsored agencies and their accreditation requirements, in the broader context of perennial efforts to rationalise the TVET qualification landscape.

Yet, on another level, there is a much more interesting story to tell. This includes different agencies adopting very different positions on qualification design, despite fundamentally agreeing on the significance of outcomes and mastery when designing vocational and technical qualifications. It also includes how awarding organisations responded to the opportunities and threats associated with the imposition of the CASLO approach. It is clear that some awarding organisations coped better than others, and some coped quite poorly. Others found creative ways to align long-standing, well respected practices to the CASLO approach, despite the approach being unsuited to their circumstances.

As noted above, we concluded that NVQs were the first CASLO qualifications of national prominence. Yet, we accept that this claim could be debated. First, it could be argued that NVQs were not truly CASLO qualifications because they were specified in terms of ‘elements of competence’ (not learning outcomes) and ‘performance criteria’ (not assessment criteria). More fundamentally, they were defined independently of any particular course of learning, which raises the question of whether elements of competence and outcomes from learning are really the same kind of thing. In response, we would argue that they are, in fact, extremely similar, both structurally and functionally, and it is precisely this structure and function that is fundamental to the CASLO approach.^{[footnote 9]}

Second, it could be argued that NVQs were not actually the first CASLO qualifications of national significance. It could instead be argued that the first generation of BTEC qualifications, which were rolled out during the mid-1980s, deserve this title (or perhaps even the TEC or BEC awards that preceded them). In response, we would argue that the distinctive template of tightly specified learning outcomes and assessment criteria, alongside a stringently applied mastery principle, is far more clear-cut in the NVQ model (and in subsequent BTEC models) than in qualifications that were rolled out during the 1980s by the Business and Technician Education Council. That said, the early TEC, BEC, and BTEC awards were explicitly outcome-based and also mastery-based, so they clearly prefigured the CASLO approach in many important respects, even though we argue that they are best seen as critical precursors.

There is another reason for describing NVQs as the first CASLO qualifications of national prominence, which relates specifically to their public profile. NVQs and GNVQs were widely criticised, which included criticism of their underlying model, which embodied the CASLO approach. Many academic journal articles contributed to this critique, and many book chapters too. Yet, it also played out in the public domain, which included a high profile, highly critical Channel 4 Dispatches TV programme fronted by Professor Alan Smithers of the University of Manchester:

Few are aware of the new revolution transforming education for the majority in Britain or the unconventional approach now being adopted. Even fewer are aware that many involved in this revolution, often by circumstance rather than desire, are expressing grave reservations (see Box B). They fear the new system, far from raising the profile and establishing the credibility of vocationally-based education, may discredit it further.

(Smithers, 1993, page 10)

This report described how these ‘revolutionary’ new qualifications – based on elements of competence and performance criteria – were displacing well known and respected qualifications, such as BTEC Nationals and City & Guilds craft certificates. It also gave the impression that both City & Guilds and the BTEC were essentially opposed to these radically new qualifications. As such, the report helped to construct a public narrative for NVQs and GNVQs (and the underlying CASLO approach) which cast them as fundamentally different from existing qualifications and fundamentally disliked by established awarding organisations. Consequently, the prominence that NVQs and GNVQs acquired during the early-1990s bathed the CASLO approach in a fairly negative light.

There is one final reason for describing NVQs as the first CASLO qualifications of national prominence, which relates to the idea of a design template. Whereas the TEC, the BEC, and later the BTEC, worked in partnership with colleges, enabling them to offer rich and integrated teaching, learning, and assessment programmes with national currency, the National Council for Vocational Qualifications operated at one step removed from this, specifying the high-level approach that awarding organisations needed to adopt when developing qualifications. This entrenched the idea of deferring to a centrally-specified design template as the basis for building a qualification.

Because of the controversy that surrounded the introduction of NVQs and GNVQs, we have discussed their introduction, rollout, and reception in considerable detail. This helps us to separate criticisms that might be specific to NVQs, and criticisms that might be specific to GNVQs, from more generalisable criticisms of the CASLO approach. However, we have also emphasised just how important it is to understand what came before NVQs and GNVQs, because they were just part of a growing zeitgeist of enthusiasm for outcome-based and mastery-based qualification models. Contrary to the impression given by critics like Smithers, both City & Guilds and the BTEC were in the vanguard of this revolution. They certainly had issues with how NVQs operationalised the CASLO approach. But both organisations acknowledged the critical role that outcomes, criteria, and mastery ought to play when designing vocational and technical qualifications, having pioneered their use for years.

To conclude this section, our research and analysis led us to a variety of conclusions concerning the approach, which included:

• the CASLO approach is a high-level template for designing qualifications, which stipulates tightly specified outcomes, tightly specified criteria, and a stringently applied mastery principle
• during the late-1980s, the CASLO approach crystallised within the original NVQ model, and soon after within the original GNVQ model
• the roots of the CASLO approach can be traced further back, however, as qualification bodies increasingly embraced the critical role of outcomes, criteria, and mastery throughout the 1970s, building these features into a variety of vocational and technical qualifications
• accreditation criteria for the NVQ framework, and subsequently the QCF, resulted in the CASLO approach achieving almost hegemonic status by the mid-2010s

We also concluded that:

• as a high-level template, the CASLO approach only fixes a few core design features, and therefore provides little more than the foundation for a fully elaborated design template (which would be bespoke to any particular qualification type) – as such, different types of CASLO qualification might well differ significantly in terms of their validity
• the CASLO qualification family includes qualification types that have succeeded, qualification types that have failed, and qualification types that should never have been required to adopt the approach – in short, the approach is neither universally fit for purpose nor universally unfit for purpose
• the CASLO approach is not sacrosanct – despite having achieved almost hegemonic status, there are other ways of designing outcome-based qualifications and other ways of designing mastery-based qualifications – and this invites us to think creatively about the significance of outcomes and mastery when designing vocational and technical qualifications for the future

What follows is the story of the CASLO approach: its pre-history, its genesis, its dominance, its goals, its fall from favour with policy makers, and reflections on its possible future. We end by exploring broader issues related to reforming TVET qualifications, which became apparent from our study of the CASLO approach. The most important of these issues concerned the risk of conceptualising and operationalising qualification reform too narrowly, with insufficient attention to the wider education and training changes that are necessary for a reform to bed in, particularly the need to support teacher and trainer development from the outset. Qualification reforms are best understood as education and training reforms that are initiated through changes to certification requirements. When reforms focus squarely on assessment, with little attention to the wider context, they tend to fail. In other words, if we invest in developing high quality qualifications – but fail to invest simultaneously in developing high quality teaching and training – then we cannot expect to reap the rewards we seek.

Control

Before jumping into the pre-history of the CASLO approach, it is worth noting a critical issue that runs throughout this account, which relates to how control has been exercised over time. Although Ofqual, which came into force in 2010, was the first ‘official’ qualification regulator in England, the control of TVET qualification systems has become increasingly centralised over time, particularly since the 1970s, and this is key to understanding the CASLO story.

The introduction of the TEC and the BEC during the 1970s was an important watershed. These government-sponsored bodies were established to help co-ordinate the provision of technician and business qualifications, and to confront the problem of unco-ordinated proliferation of courses. Although they did help to co-ordinate and rationalise the TVET qualification landscape, they did not actually regulate it. Up to the late-1980s, the major players – which included the BTEC, City & Guilds, the RSA, and others – remained essentially autonomous, self-regulating bodies.

The National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) was established during the late-1980s to develop and populate the NVQ framework. This (and subsequent) framework(s) substantially increased central control over the TVET qualification landscape via accreditation requirements – criteria that any qualification would need to satisfy in order to be accredited to the framework – in tandem with centrally specified course funding requirements that heavily favoured accredited qualifications.^{[footnote 10]} Note that these arrangements made it possible for government to exercise control over the design of TVET qualifications, thereby assuming responsibility for decisions that would previously have remained firmly under the control of the major players.^{[footnote 11]} This helps to explain how the CASLO approach came to dominate the landscape.

1. Because terminology goes into and out of fashion, we decided to use certain generic terms in ways that might not have been common during the period in question. For example, we use the term ‘awarding organisation’ throughout, although they were traditionally known as ‘awarding bodies’. Similarly, we make frequent reference to ‘Technical and Vocational Education and Training’, and to ‘TVET qualifications’, even though we tend nowadays to refer to ‘Vocational and Technical Qualifications’ (VTQs). When quoting, we use whatever term appeared in the original text. ↩

2. Outcome-based approaches preceded mastery-based ones, historically, although they often incorporate a mastery-based approach. As such, we sometimes refer simply to ‘outcome-based’ as the superordinate category of most importance to our analysis. We distinguish between outcomes and mastery where necessary. ↩

3. We use the term ‘classical’ to indicate that it is the ‘traditional’ or ‘standard’ approach. We do not mean to imply that it is the ‘definitive’ or ‘highest quality’ approach. ↩

4. Drafts of this report were also sent out for ‘technical review’ to experts from a variety of backgrounds, many of whom had extensive experience of working for one or more of the key agencies of the 1980s and 1990s (including the NCVQ, the BTEC, the QCA, and so on). ↩

5. It is unclear when this intentionally disparaging term was first coined, although it appears, for instance, in the 1986 Review of Vocational Qualifications (De Ville, 1986, page 7). ↩

6. In other words, NVQs formed a (highly distinctive) subset of the CASLO qualification family, which itself is a subset of the outcome-based qualification family. ↩

7. This process was incentivised in many instances by rules stipulating that only accredited qualifications would be eligible for funding. ↩

8. This was also incentivised by qualification funding rules. ↩

9. We also note that elements of competence were actually described as “outcomes of learning” when NVQ criteria and procedures were first specified (NCVQ, 1988, page 9; NCVQ, 1989, page 3). ↩

10. In previous years, courses and qualifications tended to be locally funded (largely by Local Education Authorities) so this lever had only recently become available to central government. ↩

11. It is worth emphasising that the NCVQ exercised control at a higher level than the TEC, BEC, or BTEC. The Technician-Business councils functioned much like awarding organisations, although they were officially constituted as validating bodies (engaging primarily with centres). The NCVQ was an accrediting organisation, which made it more like a regulator, with a remit to influence systems and practices across the qualifications sector (engaging primarily with awarding organisations). ↩