Educational institutions and study programmes

Below, we explain what types of educational institutions and study programmes there are in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We also explain how we check whether these are recognised. We check the recognition to make sure that the quality is sufficient. We give the necessary information per educational sector.

The GCSE and GCE exams are administered not by the secondary schools but by regional examining boards. Many of these examining boards have merged over the years. The most well-known examining boards are:

• AQA
• Pearson
• OCR
• WJEC (Wales)
• CCEA (Northern-Ireland)
• Cambridge

In addition to these regional examining boards, there is a board for international secondary education: Cambridge International. It offers international variants of British qualifications.

There are different types of subjects at GCE AS level and A level:

• academic subjects
• vocational subjects
• skills-based subjects.

Only relevant subjects can count towards a credential evaluation. The academic and vocational subjects are relevant subjects because they contribute to admission to higher education. The skills-based subjects, on the other hand, are never ‘relevant subjects’. British universities do not accept these subjects as grounds for admission: they are non-academic subjects, also known as ‘non-preferred subjects’.

Skills-based subjects as an extra subject

The skills-based subjects can have added value as an extra subject (skill). Examples of such subjects are General paper, Global Perspectives & Research, General Studies, Critical Thinking, Thinking Skills and Extended Project.

The applied subjects, such as Applied Business and Applied ICT, also do not contribute to admission to higher education. These subjects were eliminated in 2017.

Below, we will set out which GCE subjects can count towards an comparison with a HAVO or VWO diploma.

In the United Kingdom, there are different types of higher education institutions:

• universities;
• non-university institutions, such as colleges, institutes, schools and academies.

These institutions provide both research-oriented education ( WO ) and higher professional education ( HBO ). For example, some institutions of higher education offer engineering both in research-oriented and in more professionally oriented bachelor's programmes.

Collaboration with partner institutions

Many British universities offer degree programmes in collaboration with a British or overseas partner institution. This type of partnership is known as collaborative provision. Most British universities keep a list of partners and the degree programmes concerned in the collaborative provision register.

Types of collaboration

Two types of collaboration are particularly widespread:

• validation, in which the partner institution develops and provides the degree programme and the British university both awards the degree/qualification and safeguards its quality; and
• franchising, in which the British university develops the degree programme and the partner institution provides it.

The QQA’s Quality Code for Higher Education provides guidelines for the collaboration with partner institutions: see partnerships.

For higher education diplomas, you need to perform an extra check. Below, we describe what you need to check for diplomas we often see:

• Higher National Diplomas need to be included in the Ofqual Register.
• Bachelor's en master's degrees need to be awarded by an educational institution with specific degree awarding powers. Below, we describe how you can check this in the OfS Register for bachelor's and master's degrees from England.