Students at North Lanarkshire College are among the first on SQA’s new Higher National Certificate (HNC) in Television – part of the first phase of ‘NextGen: HN’ qualifications being developed to give learners the skills they need to thrive in the workplace.
The HNC and HND qualifications are being shaped to help learners adapt to fast-moving changes in education and employment and will support life-long learning as well as developing critical industry and subject-specific technical skills. They will also feature practical and behaviour-based assessments.
Students help to shape the course
Students, Morven Thomson and Ross McCallum are currently undertaking the new HNC in Television at the college’s Cumbernauld campus. They produced a film as part of the course, which will be used to promote the new generation of qualifications and encourage other colleges to take part in the next phase of the pilot.
Morven said: “We’ve done a lot of day-long practice shoots and worked on larger projects. We worked on a film noir trailer which ended up being a 30-second-long trailer in this film style.
“I really want the practical experience so that I can go onto university and do a degree that’s mostly theory. I know that I have those skills and can take what I’ve learned from the course and put it into action.”
Describing the course, Ross said: “I did think it would be a lot of theory, but a lot of it has been practical which is what I like to do. I like to get into the work and just do it.”
Skills for the modern workplace
NextGen: HN qualifications encourage the development of the students’ meta-skills, which reflect the professional practices and behaviours expected in industry. They include self-management, social intelligence, and innovation.
Alan Moffat, Head of Visual & Creative Arts at New College Lanarkshire said: “It’s hard to predict both work and learning as technology changes at a rate that society sometimes barely has time to process. While meta-skills may be a new name to some, the skills they describe are timeless. They are the higher order skills that create adaptive learners and promote success in whatever context the future brings.”
Next steps in the project
New College Lanarkshire is one of only two institutions piloting the course, alongside Edinburgh College. In 2022, the college plans to deliver the Next Generation HNC in Television at its Motherwell campus, as well as piloting the HND in Television in Cumbernauld.
The next phase of the NextGen: HN project will see further subjects piloted in 2022-23, including Accounting, Childhood Practice and Social Services, and Engineering.
Valerie Innes, Head of Service: Next Generation Qualifications and Standards at SQA, explains: “The initial pilots are the first step towards our ambition of developing new, world-class, forward-thinking qualifications which will meet the needs of today’s learners, the education sector and industry.”
You can find out more information about NextGen: HN on the SQA website.
