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who chaired NCVQ. A QCA official who had been closely involved in drafting the
Capey Report8 observed that:
Dearing always had. a word with Capey after every meeting to find out where
we were going, and it was interesting that some of the very - if you read the
Capey Report - [suggestions were] deeply tentative about what was needed. But
kind of a month later in the Dearing [Report] it was set in stone....
(QCA3 2004)
What Dearing set in stone was based on his profound hope that the ever-elusive
‘parity of esteem’ between academic and vocational qualifications would develop
from a unified regulatory body and what were described as ‘unitary awarding bodies’.
Dearing was convinced that a ‘three-track’ qualifications system - academic, general
vocational and specific vocational - was the way forward for England. From his
informed perspective, but even more from his personal philosophical conviction, he
believed that the way to build public confidence in the new GNVQ and NVQ
qualifications would be for the regulation and assessment for the whole range of
qualifications to reside with single organisations which would erase the “binary line,
as a frontier that largely divides the awarding and regulatory bodies, [and]
symbolises and enshrines the way we categorise achievement" (Dearing 1996: 29).
Dearing wanted to transfer to the new qualifications the examining boards’
established expertise. An assessment expert explained the effect he was seeking:
...the ‘track record’ of awarders creates something akin to what art historians
call provenance, which is of crucial importance in establishing the credibility of
the awards. Awarding bodies understand this very well, which is why they often
appear cautious with new developments. Any new system of awards will be
treated very suspiciously by users until their awards have similar provenance.
(Wiliam 1996: 304)
To oversee the arrangement he was proposing, Sir Ron recommended the
amalgamation of the academic and vocational regulators - SCAA and NCVQ. The
unification of the two agencies took place in 1997, when the Qualifications and