Dr. Jim Murray:

One of the functions of QQI is qualifications' recognition and it is the ENIC-NARIC centre for Ireland which supports the recognition of international qualifications and outward recognition of Irish qualifications. We are linked in with all of these issues at a European level and we have structures in place to enhance the comparability of qualifications through our national framework of qualifications, which is linked in to the European qualifications framework. We are able to do level-to-level comparisons from the Polish framework or the Dutch framework. A challenge we have to work on is that vocational educational training, VET, systems across Europe are not as easily compared as higher education systems. The European Commission is working on methods and methodologies that we can use to further develop this and we are part of that system. VET systems tend to have national idiosyncrasies which make them more difficult in terms of qualifications' recognition than higher education. A lot of work is going on at European level, particularly through qualifications' frameworks and the use of various conventions and so forth on recognition, to keep improving this on an ongoing basis and we are very involved in this at a European level.