Since the 2016 law on the integrated qualifications system came into force, a national qualifications framework level is assigned to every qualification awarded in the formal education system.

Qualifications awarded before 2016 have to be referred to the qualifications framework based on a separate regulation.

A methodology of assigning a level to a qualification has been supported by the Educational Research Institute (IBE), curricula and syllabus developers, school and crafts, examination board and employers’ association representatives.

Founding principles were developed by four sectoral groups. Their proposals were then reviewed and elaborated into a unified scheme. In the second stage, this was tested on 413 selected vocational qualifications by 14 consultation teams of experts from different economic sectors. The whole process took more than one and a half years and resulted in a developed (designed and tested) five-stage method of assigning levels to qualifications.

The stages are linked to each other and should not be considered separately, as each serves the purpose of increasing the accuracy of the recommendation on the level of a qualification.