Qualifications with purpose: reflections from the Ofqual OBQD conference
Dr Vikki Smith, Executive Director, Education and Standards, Education Training Foundation
The Outcome-Based Qualification Design (OBQD) conference, convened by Ofqual at King’s College London, brought together leading thinkers from across the world of vocational and technical education. With framing from Dr Paul Newton (Research Chair) and Catherine Large (Executive Director for Vocational and Technical Qualifications), the event was a rare moment where academics, practitioners, and policymakers came together to revisit some of the most fundamental questions about the purpose and practice of qualification design.
Throughout the day, the debate returned again and again to the purpose of qualifications. Are they designed to benefit the individual, society, and community – linking to wider notions of social value, social justice, and social benefit – or are they shaped primarily as instruments of policy, focused on skills supply to the economy? In practice, qualifications inevitably carry both functions, but the conference challenged us to ask whether current approaches achieve the right balance.
Contributions from leading voices, including Professors Stephanie Allais, Leesa Wheelahan, Chris Winch, Loukas Zahilas, Alison Fuller, Kevin Orr, and Maggie Gregson, alongside Tim Oates, Eddie Playfair, Hayley Dalton, Rose Veitch and others, highlighted the diversity of perspectives on this question. Some called for a broader conception of qualifications, one that supports adaptability and growth over time, while others emphasised the risks of an overly narrow focus on competency and outcomes. International comparisons, such as Switzerland’s broader domain-based models, offered a valuable counterpoint to England’s traditions of specificity.
Trust emerged as a recurring theme. School and higher education qualifications often enjoy protection through cultural assumptions of legitimacy, while vocational and technical qualifications are repeatedly subject to reform and intervention. This constant cycle raises a deeper question: what is the social purpose of qualifications? If we see them as part of human development, their role extends beyond preparing learners for immediate jobs or tasks. Instead, qualifications should prepare people for careers, lives, and contributions that they have reason to value.
The discussions also underlined that qualifications carry multiple forms of value, be this intrinsic, educational, social, and economic. Their purposes are not simply economic instruments but also a means of developing individual agency and enabling people to contribute to families, communities, and the wider skills system.
This has profound implications for curriculum development. Reform needs to be driven by social and moral purposes, not just economic calculations. That means investing in new vocational pedagogies, in assessment design (so often overlooked), and in the trust and professionalism required for systemic curriculum reform. Crucially, this links directly to teacher training and workforce development, without which curriculum and qualification reform cannot succeed.
The day concluded with a panel discussion on The Future of Vocational Qualification Design, and brought into sharp focus the central challenge: how to design qualifications that balance economic need with social purpose, ensuring that vocational education is not only trusted but also valued. The timing could not be more important. As the sector awaits the forthcoming Curriculum and Assessment Review report, the questions raised at OBQD offer both a challenge and an opportunity: to ensure that qualifications reform is guided by trust, professionalism, and a clear sense of social as well as economic purpose.