Our vocational inheritance

by Gillian Cooke, 10 May 2016
Our Group Archivist Gillian explains the broad range of vocational qualifications we 'inherited' from the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). 

vocational heritage blog black and orange booklet - imageWhen we joined with the RSA to form OCR we inherited a broad range of vocational qualifications. 

A quick browse of the Guide to the Examinations for 1991 reveals not only a huge number of vocational qualifications on offer but an impressive vocational heritage blog blue booklet front cover - imagebreadth of subjects. There were those that sound very dated to us now, such as Shorthand and Word Processing and those that we have long associated with the RSA legacy such as Book keeping, Languages and Office Administration qualifications

There were the highly practical qualifications in Road Freight Transport, Manufacturing Practice, Travel Geography and in Wholesaling and Warehousing; collaborative qualifications such as the Health Education Programme which was run in association with the Health Education Authority and several different types of Teaching Diplomas. 

vocational heritage blog green booklet cover - imageThere were familiar subjects such as the enduring Certificate of Continuing Education and the not so familiar such as Communicative Use of English for the Hearing Impaired and, my favourite, French for Catering Students

If you’d like to know more about the Group Archives, see us on Insite or contact us on: archives@cambridgeasessment.org.uk 

Gillian Cooke 
Group Archivist, Cambridge Assessment

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