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The relationship between the NQF and outcomes-based education
The qualifications and standards registered on the NQF are described in terms of
the specific learning outcomes that the qualifying learner is expected to
demonstrate. Previously it was often true that the learning institution where a
qualification was obtained was, in fact, more important than that which the
qualifying students actually knew and could do. Learning institutions were able to
decide arbitrarily to recognise, or not to recognise, qualifications attained at other
learning institutions. The focus has now shifted to what the learner knows and
can do rather than where the learner studied. While the traditional definition of
knowledge emphasised language, especially through writing, an open process of
communication, and formal and discipline-bound conventions, the new
terminology urges higher education to allow the term knowledge to embrace
knowledge-through-action, particular outcomes of a learning transaction,
and transdisciplinary forms of skill. The NQF, thus, emphasises applied
competence or the ability to put into practice in the relevant context the learning
outcomes acquired in obtaining a qualification.
