A Higher National Certificate (HNC) is a higher education/further education qualification in the United Kingdom.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the HNC is a BTEC qualification awarded by Edexcel, and in Scotland, an HNC is a Higher National awarded by the Scottish Qualifications Authority. The attainment level of the rest is roughly equivalent to one year of university and a Certificate of Higher Education but being less than that of a Higher National Diploma (HND). Studied full-time, the qualification normally takes one year or two years part-time. Many HNCs cover the same areas as an HND and it is often possible to complete an HND with one year full-time study after successfully completing the HNC.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, an HNC (previously a level 4 qualification) is now Level 5 on the National Qualifications Framework.
In Ireland, an HNC is considered roughly equalivant to a FETAC level 6 Advanced Certificate - as both contain at least 8 modules/units at IRL level 6 (UK level 4)
In Scotland, an HNC is Level 7 on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework.
Famous quotes containing the words higher, national and/or certificate:
“I have just come down from my father.
Higher and higher he lies
Above me in a blue light
Shed by a tinted window.”
—James Dickey (b. 1923)
“The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great North-West for it. Nor yet wholly to them.... The job was a great national one.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and raiment, but the unrighteous man found a facsimile of the same in God’s coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting that the world has seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)