I was recently asked by someone why SQA developed data science qualifications. The person was planning a webinar (with an international audience) and wanted to “set the Scottish educational context” by explaining “the rationale for data science qualifications”. She had searched this blog for an answer — but without success. I promised that I would rectify that.<\/p>\n
We developed NPA Data Science<\/a> in 2018\/19. At the time, it was the first school-based national qualification in data science in the world and there was immediate interest from schools and colleges. More recently, we’ve just validated a Professional Development Award in Data Science<\/a> – so recently that there’s not yet a subject page. Right now, we’re in the process of developing HND Data Science, which will be available from Spring 2021. By the end of this intensive period of development, we’ll have data science qualifications spanning SCQF<\/a> Levels 4-9.<\/p>\n SQA is influenced by lots of internal committees and external agencies. The Sector Panel<\/a> for Computing includes employers and representatives from national agencies, who ensure that we are aware of external developments. The Edinburgh & South East City Region Deal<\/a> focused on data and spawned the Data Education in Schools<\/a> initiative, which encouraged us and provided practical assistance. Organisations such as DataLab<\/a> supported us. The media was full of stories about data is the new oil<\/a>. It was becoming apparent that data skills will be vital for every learner. All of this spurred us into action in 2018.<\/p>\n Please contact Emma<\/a> for more information about NPA Data Science and contact Helen<\/a> for more information about PDA Data Science and the forthcoming HND Data Science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was recently asked by someone why SQA developed data science qualifications. The person was planning a webinar (with an international audience) and wanted to “set the Scottish educational context” by explaining “the rationale for data science qualifications”. She had searched this blog for an answer — but without success. I promised that I would rectify that. We developed NPA Data Science in 2018\/19. At the time, it was the first school-based national qualification in data science in the world…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qualifications.gov.scot\/computing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qualifications.gov.scot\/computing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qualifications.gov.scot\/computing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qualifications.gov.scot\/computing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qualifications.gov.scot\/computing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3472"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qualifications.gov.scot\/computing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3474,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qualifications.gov.scot\/computing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472\/revisions\/3474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qualifications.gov.scot\/computing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qualifications.gov.scot\/computing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qualifications.gov.scot\/computing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}