BTEC and Skillset standards comparison
Skillset: http://www.skillset.org/uploads/pdf/asset_11296.pdf?1
BTEC: http://www.edexcel.org.uk/VirtualContent/72130/BH015809_HNCD_Interactive_Media_L5_specification.pdf
BTEC and Skillset both aim to provide a set of specifications which outline the requirements needed to become proficient in interactive media. BTEC is constructed by academic individuals, with the aim to provide students with an education over a two year course. Skillset has a much different aim, which is to provide a set of skills which people should have to be employed in the interactive media industry.
Both BTEC and Skillset understand the need for skills such as time planning, organisation and self managed learning. This is the first unit of Skillset, and unit 29 of the BTEC syllabus. I think these skills are very important for people in the interactive industry, and both specifications realise this.
However, the Skillset unit contains far more elements in its specification, while the BTEC syllabus separates out many of the skills over a number of units. I feel that the Skillset specifications are designed for a much longer timescale, where as the BTEC skills are arranged to be taught over a two year course. Due to these time limitations, the BTEC specifications cannot contain the same amount of detail as the Skillset specifications.
This could create problems when applying for jobs, as potential employers may want to see a larger range of organisational skills which may not be applicable to a two year course. This can include learning over long periods of time, as many projects in a real job could last over the amount of time the longest unit on the BTEC course.
I feel the BTEC course tries to balance traditional academic study with industry professional practice. This could be acceptable, but as the syllabus has not been updated for a considerable amount of time it has quickly become outdated. In an industry which changes frequently, this can become damaging to the relevance of the syllabus.
This can be seen most clearly with the ‘New technologies in Interactive media’ (unit 22) part of the course, which does not contain any CSS as part of its specification. However, the tutor’s interpretation of this did allow us to create a CSS project as part of the A8 assignment, which is more in line with the specifications outlined in Skillset (IM19). This shows how out of date the syllabus is, as CSS is now widely used but does not appear explicitly as part of the course.
The arrangement of the Skillset specifications is also more relevant to the industry as it has been arranged into different job roles in some sections. This is useful for showing how the skills of one job are transferable from one to another. It can also highlight what new skills may have to be learnt if a career change was being planned. BTEC does not separate out its content into job roles, suggesting that it is to be learnt as a whole, rather than to be constantly referenced to highlight which skills need to be developed for career changes.
In conclusion I think that the BTEC syllabus has the correct structure to create a good grounding in 2 year for potential interactive media designers, but due to the very infrequent updates it soon becomes outdated and, in the case of some units, irrelevant. This leads to a dependence on course tutors to interpret the syllabus in a way which explores the skills outlined in the Skillset specifications. If executed correctly, this is a sound way of making the best of a bad situation.
In an ideal situation, the course syllabus would be updated regularly, with many of the Skillset recommendations taken into account. Obviously, with the syllabus being written for a two year course, not all of the specifications could fit into syllabus. If Skillset could prioritise the skills in their own specifications, then it would make organisation for both BTEC and the individual easier if they wanted to follow the industry recommendations.
6 comments:
The inclusion of the job roles in Skillset was something that was something that caught my attention too. I think that to improve BTEC it would need to consider doing this also.
I like that you have highlighted the usefulness of this as it does highlight where skills are transferable.
In an ideal world like I mentioned in my post, there would be a blend of the two into one far more concrete syllabus.
You mention the positives of the Skillset standards mentioning typical job roles in the sections, but you mention nothing of the limitations of this approach. Do you not feel that a lot of the job roles mentioned only exist in massive design studios and specialist in-house services? There is no mention that a lot of designers in smaller studios have to do a lot of these jobs themselves.
I think this runs the risk of a niave designer thinking that they don't have to bother with such things as assets collection and copyright issues because they are being given the false impression that an assets manager would organise such things.
I agree, Skillset have done better with the addition of Job Roles but isn't this just a rough guide of what roles go with which Job?
Like Craig says not mentioning Assets or Copyright for a designer would give a 'baby' designer false impressions and they may just 'borrow' an image from a website not knowing if it is copyrighted or not, or failing that not caring as it is not their job.
I think it is beneficial to show rough job roles in the Skillset standards. This can never be perfect because every different company will have their own way of doing things.
The majority of the time the size of the workforce will influence the roles of each job. However, I think having a broad understanding of what you would be expected to do in a certain role is advantageous.
The Skillset document merely suggests job roles where that unit of information applies; it does not state that this is all that you must have to fill one particular role. Obviously, in smaller businesses the division of tasks is different to that of a larger business.
As you say Craig, a blend of the two would be a good solution – but I doubt that will happen any time soon. Education seems to have a bad habit of not listening to what industries require in terms of skills, and for this reason the country has such an imbalance of people with the necessary skills to fill job posts.
People often rely on education to teach them all they need to know about a subject, and are usually not even taught half. Admittedly, some skills can’t be learn on an evidence based course, and ‘continual assessment’ is reliant on all tutors assessing work to the same standard, which is essentially impossible.
The only way round it would be for the industry to take charge of the education, so they teach people the most relevant skills in their own environment. But businesses being businesses, they probably wouldn’t want to spend cash which does not directly link to shareholder dividends – and so the vicious circle continues.
That revolution is waiting to happen – it just needs someone with some big kohonies to actually do it.
Are you suggesting a return to apprenticeships Julian? I think this could be an ideal situation, so long as you don't get in with a bad design studio.
Even then this approach relies on someone to teach you everything, and this would allow even less students to study the subject. However, at least the people on the apprenticeships would have to prove they really wanted it.
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