Since learning outcomes are, by their nature, narrowly conceived, what they measure is also narrowly conceived. The European Qualifications Framework is highly abstract since any reference to real educational programmes and qualifications and any concrete provision for the transition and for the transf erability between educational levels and sectors vocational and higher education, initial and continuing training was avoided in order to adhere to the anti-harmonisation clause. In countries where vocational training was assigned more to the realm of economic and labor law and where such training is organized based on market structures, the ban on harmonization played, in reality, no real role. This set of criteria may be implicit in the qualifications descriptors themselves or made explicit in the form of a set of level descriptors. A case in point was the attempt in the s, on the basis of a job classification system, to build corresponding job descriptions, which was abandoned Sellin and Piehl,
nest...