NVQ Unit Awards and Mini Awards

NVQs

NVQ Units

NVQs are made up of Units of Competence. Units can be brought together to make a full NVQ or achieved individually, as a Unit Award, or in small groups to make Mini Awards, i.e. the Assessor Award has two Units, A1 and A2. Below is not a finite list of all the Units used in NVQs, but a representation of the most commonly used or required by business or individuals.

NVQ Unit Awards and Mini Awards

Whilst NVQs are designed as 'full qualifications', that is they accredit someone's competence to do a whole job, most 'jobs' can be split into smaller skill sets.

If you look closely at a full NVQ, you will see that it's structure is made up of a number of separate 'skill sets', known as Units of Competence.

As such, you can choose to achieve just a single unit of competence. Some of these units, are so recognised as a common skill set, that they are deliberately offered as stand alone qualifications, such as the NVQ Assessor Award covering Units A1 and A2 from the Learning and Development Standards. In some cases, achievement of a unit of competence is a requirement for a job role.

Common Unit Awards