Progress with NPA Data Science
Me and Lorraine met with representatives of DataLab this morning. It was a productive meeting. The DataLab people were very interested in the forthcoming NPA in Data Science. DataLab mostly deals with the “high end” of education (Masters degrees and Doctorates) so the NPA represents the other end — but both ends will contribute to the “skills pipeline”. The meeting has prompted me to provide an update on progress with the NPA.
The development is progressing well. We now have a framework and most of the component units have been written. Lorraine is in the process of forming a validation panel for the group award, while me and my team validate the individual units, which is currently on-going.
It’s an exciting development. As far as we know (and we’ve looked) it’s the first national qualification in data science, designed for schools, in the world. It’s been a challenge to produce units in areas such as Machine Learning that can be undertaken by school pupils but, I think, the unit writers have managed this.
You can be the judge of that, once the qualification is published. The units will be finalised by the end of this month (March) and published next month (April). The validation will take place in May. We hope to have a subject page for the new qualification in June so that centres can offer it from August.
Please contact Lorraine if you want to know more about this new qualification or catch sight of “beta” versions of the arrangements and units.
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2 Comments
Bobby,
Do you think that this NPA could lead to progression to the Diploma in Data Analyitics L8 GL30 48?
Sorry, Ian, this blog gets so many spam comments that they tend to be ignored. Yes, I do. The Level 6 award is quite demanding, both theoretically and practically, and would be good preparation for the Diploma.