[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 245 (Thursday, December 19, 1996)]
[Notices]
[Pages 67068-67072]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 96-32224]


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NATIONAL SKILL STANDARDS BOARD


Request for Comments on a Proposal To Establish a Voluntary 
National Skill Standards System

Background: This notice requests public comment on the National Skill 
Standards Board's (NSSB) Proposal to Establish a Voluntary National 
Skill Standards System. The National Skill Standards Act of 1994 (Pub. 
L. 103-227, Title V, Section 504(a)) requires the Board to ``identify 
broad clusters of major occupations that involve 1 or more than 1 
industry in the United States and that share characteristics that are 
appropriate for the development of common skill standards. * * * Prior 
to identifying broad clusters of major occupations * * * the National 
Board shall engage in extensive public consultation, including 
solicitation of public comment on proposed clusters through publication 
in the Federal Register.'' For the purposes of the National Skill 
Standards Act, the ``sectors of the economy'' described in

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the proposal constitute the ``clusters'' required by the Act.
    To solicit the views of all potential stakeholders in a voluntary 
national skill standards system, the NSSB has conducted six public 
hearings and a two-day National Skill Standards Forum on September 16 
and 17, 1996. In addition, the NSSB or its staff have held numerous 
smaller meetings with stakeholder representatives. Stakeholder 
representatives have also made presentations at public meetings of the 
National Skill Standards Board.

DEADLINE FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS: Comments on the proposal must be 
postmarked no later than January 21, 1997. Comments must be in written 
form, and two copies must be provided, addressed to NSSB Proposal 
Coordinator, National Skill Standards Board, 1441 L St., NW, Suite 
9000, Washington, DC 20005.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Marjorie Haas, National Skill 
Standards Board, 1441 L St., NW, Suite 9000, Washington, DC 20005, 
(202) 254-8628.

PROPOSAL

National Skill Standards Board Proposal To Establish a Voluntary 
National Skill Standards System

    The 1994 National Skill Standards Act charged the National Skill 
Standards Board with ``stimulating the development and adoption of a 
voluntary national system of skill standards.'' Skill standards specify 
the knowledge and competence required to successfully perform in a 
given occupation or field. By enhancing the skills of the workforce, 
skill standards will increase the productivity, economic growth, and 
competitiveness of America and American businesses. Skill standards 
will benefit all stakeholders:
     Businesses can use skill standards to maximize efficiency 
in recruiting, hiring, deploying, training, and promoting employees. 
Firms can also use skill standards to pursue the goal of becoming a 
high performance work organization.
     Unions can use the standards to ensure that workers have a 
greater voice at the workplace, and benefit from enhanced career and 
job opportunities.
     Workers can use the standards to advance their careers, 
protect themselves against dislocation, and enhance their ability to 
reenter the workforce.
     Students and jobseekers can use the standards to 
understand and acquire the skills needed to attain high wage jobs and 
successful careers.
     Educators and trainers preparing people for work can use 
the standards to better meet business requirements, and to improve the 
school-to-work transition for individuals.
    The Board itself will not set skill standards, but rather establish 
the guidelines used to endorse standards created by groups called 
``voluntary partnerships'' in the 1994 law. The law requires that 
voluntary partnerships include employer, union, worker, community, and 
education and training representatives. The standards endorsed by the 
NSSB will cover workers in entry-level through first line supervisory 
positions.

Grouping Jobs for the Purpose of Creating Skill Standards

    The law required the Board to ``identify broad clusters of major 
occupations'' for the purpose of setting standards, for several 
compelling reasons.
     First, it would be extraordinarily confusing and 
inefficient if employers, unions, workers, and educators had to 
navigate a ``system'' in which different standards covered the same 
industry or occupation.
     Second, it's unwise to set standards that are so narrow 
that workers lack the versatility to adapt to changes within their 
firms, or cannot perform alternative tasks when the need arises
     Third, one of the goals of skill standards is to 
facilitate the acquisition of skills not just for a single job or 
occupation, but for a career. For this purpose it is necessary to group 
jobs in such a way that individuals clearly understand what skills and 
knowledge they need to obtain better jobs within a broad field.
    The law also requires that the voluntary partnerships establish 
standards within the occupational categories designated by the Board.
    To meet these goals, the NSSB has divided the economy into 16 
sectors. The sectors are designed to accurately reflect employment 
patterns, and to make sense to the employers, unions, workers, 
students, and educators who will use the system. The 16 sectors combine 
the industry categories that are most familiar to employers with the 
concept of an occupation, which is how most individuals think of their 
jobs.
    Most of the sectors align closely with traditional industry 
categories used by trade associations and in national classification 
systems. Because some functions are common to many industries, 3 of the 
16 sectors of the economy (business and administrative services; 
property management and building maintenance services; and research, 
development and technical services) cover multiple industries.

The 16 Economic Sectors

     Agricultural Production and Natural Resource Management
     Mining and Extraction Operations
     Construction Operations
     Manufacturing, Installation and Repair
     Energy and Utilities Operations
     Transportation Operations
     Communications
     Wholesale/Retail Sales
     Hospitality and Tourism Services
     Financial Services
     Health and Social Services
     Education and Training Services
     Public Administration, Legal, and Protective Services
     Business and Administrative Services
     Property Management and Building Maintenance Services
     Research, Development and Technical Services
    The Board will begin its work with three of these sectors: 
Manufacturing, Installation and Repair; Wholesale/Retail Sales; and 
Business and Administrative Services (together these three sectors 
employ roughly half of all front-line workers). The NSSB will 
collaborate closely with the voluntary partnerships, learn from their 
experience in these three sectors, and use the lessons learned to 
improve the national skill standards system.

Skill Standards Framework

    The following Skill Standards Framework will be used to create a 
system of voluntary national skill standards.

Skill Standards

    The Skill Standards Framework for setting standards covers three 
types of knowledge and skill, ranging from the broad to the specific: 
core, concentrations, an specialities. By ``standard'' we mean a 
performance standard, that is, what one needs to know and be able to do 
and how well one needs to be able to do it.
     Core knowledge and skills are those common to, and 
essential for, the entire sector. For example, in manufacturing the 
core might include understanding what quality control is and possessing 
the ability to implement or apply various means of ensuring quality.
     Concentration knowledge and skills cover a broad area 
within the sector. Such knowledge and skills would be more targeted 
than the core level, but less specific than the specialty level 
described below. For example, in manufacturing this might cover a broad 
function, such as product assembly.
     Specialty knowledge and skills are the most detailed 
component in the skill

[[Page 67070]]

standards framework, targeting particular jobs or perhaps the needs of 
specialized firms. An example might be the knowledge and skills 
necessary for a specific occupation in steel production.
    The standards for the core, the concentrations and the specialities 
will each be described in terms of the (1) academic skills and 
knowledge, (2) occupational skills and knowledge, and (3) employability 
skills and knowledge required to carry out the critical work functions 
for each of these three levels of the skills standards framework.
    By Critical work functions we mean major chunks of the work that 
must be performed and which, taken together, constitute the critical or 
principal responsibilities of the individuals involved. For a chef, 
making sauces or planning the meals might be critical work functions; 
for a metal worker, the critical work functions might include 
statistical process control of product quality and setting up computer-
controlled milling machines to perform specified operations. We do not 
mean by critical work functions a list of all the tasks required to 
perform the critical work functions.
    Academic skills and knowledge mean the skills and knowledge 
associated with the academic disciplines, including but not limited to 
English language arts (speaking, reading and writing), mathematics, 
physics, biology, chemistry, etc.
    Occupational skills and knowledge mean the technical skills and 
knowledge particular to a specified trade or occupation or group of 
trades or occupations. For example, a technician who repairs and 
maintains small engines must understand how engines work, how to 
diagnose problems and fix them, and how to find and order the necessary 
parts.
    Employability skills and knowledge mean the skill and knowledge 
needed to function effectively in almost all kinds of high performance 
work environments, but which is of neither kind described above. We 
have in mind such things as the ability to work effectively with 
others, to understand systems and how they function, to take 
responsibility for one's own work, to solve problems as they arise, and 
other skills of the kind described in the U.S. Department of Labor's 
Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) report.
    In carrying out its statutory responsibility to establish economic 
sectors, the Board defines the area within which voluntary partnerships 
establish the core standards (which are common to the entire sector). 
But the voluntary partnership itself will designate concentration and 
specialty levels. A voluntary partnership might designate as few as 
zero, or as many as six, concentrations, but there will be no limit on 
the number of specialties. In deciding whether or not to endorse the 
work of the voluntary partnerships, the Board will use criteria 
described in a later section.
    The framework might be pictured as a tree, with the core 
corresponding to the trunk, the concentrations corresponding to the 
branches, and the specialties corresponding to the leaves (see figure).

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Certificates Offered

    Although there is the potential for three levels of knowledge and 
skills, there will be only two types of certificates: a basic 
certificate will encompass either the core alone (if there are no 
concentrations) or the core plus one concentration level, and a 
specialty certificate will cover the specialty level of knowledge and 
skills. A voluntary partnership could establish basic certificates for 
up to six concentrations.
    The voluntary partnership will establish the standards for the 
basic certificate(s), which will then be endorsed by the NSSB if it 
meets the criteria described below. Outside groups (which might include 
trade associations, accredited educational institutions and training 
providers, and recognized third-party assessment groups) will recommend 
the standards for specialty certificates. These groups will present 
standards for prospective specialty certificates to the voluntary 
partnerships for review and endorsement, in the same manner that the 
voluntary partnerships will present standards for basic certificates to 
the NSSB for review and endorsement.
    In their review of prospective specialty certificates, the 
voluntary partnerships will use the same criteria that the NSSB will 
use to review the work of the voluntary partnerships themselves (these 
criteria are described below). The voluntary partnerships also will 
ensure that the standards for prospective specialty certificates build 
directly on the standards for the basic certificate(s). Specialty 
certificates could cover overlapping--or even identical--jobs or 
functions. By allowing competition among those who develop standards at 
the detailed specialty level, the skill standards system can adapt to 
changes in technology, work organization, and customer preferences.
    The Board will require each voluntary partnership to develop a plan 
to meet the needs of experienced workers. The plan will include in its 
skill standards system an opportunity to acquire and demonstrate 
through assessment the skill and knowledge required for the basic 
certificate.
    Voluntary partnerships may begin the analytical process of 
developing standards at the broad core level(s), or by reviewing the 
narrower specialties if these already exist in the sector. However, the 
NSSB will only endorse the work of voluntary partnerships that submit 
basic certificates to the Board before the voluntary partnership 
endorses specialty certificates.

Criteria for the Skill Standards

    In order to qualify for Board endorsement, the skill standards 
system recommended by the voluntary partnerships (or the outside groups 
in the case of the specialties) will have to meet the following 
criteria (in addition to other criteria specified in the National Skill 
Standards Act):
     Follow a common nomenclature identified by the Board;
     Describe in clear terms the critical work functions 
specific to the core, concentrations, and specialties;
     Describe the academic, employability, and occupational 
knowledge and skills necessary to perform the critical work functions 
for the core, concentrations, and specialties;
     Adhere to statutory requirements and Board policy on 
assessment;
     Be consistent with civil rights law;
     Meet or exceed the highest applicable standards used in 
the United States, including registered apprenticeship standards;
     Be benchmarked to the best international standards;
     Be forward looking; and
     Include a plan for the updating and continuous improvement 
of standards and certificates.
    These criteria will pertain to all three levels of standards, as 
well as the two types of certificates. However, as noted earlier, the 
voluntary partnerships--not the NSSB--would review the specialty 
certificates for adherence to the NSSB's policies.
    Some of these criteria are required by the National Skill Standards 
Act, including consistency with civil rights law; meeting or exceeding 
the highest applicable U.S. standards; and procedures to periodically 
revise and update the system.

    Signed at Washington, DC this 13th day of December, 1996.
Edie West,
Executive Director, National Skill Standards Board.
[FR Doc. 96-32224 Filed 12-18-96; 8:45 am]
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