Seamless garb on credit

THE University of the Highlands and Islands Project says a single tertiary funding council seems to be the logical solution to supporting students' progress.

It welcomes the proposals for a credit-based Scottish qualifications framework as legitimising intermediate awards and integrating postgraduate, post-experience and professional qualifications.

This strengthens the move "towards the seamless garment of tertiary education favoured by UHIP", it says, but other recommendations reinforce the dividing line between further and higher education, sub-degree and degree work. "It is difficult to see how a funding regime which separates the funding for a Higher National Diploma from the funding for a degree is a logical outcome of the qualifications framework."