The Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) acknowledges and affirms an individual's past experiences and learning as well as their value through equivalence checking. This research was conducted to determine and develop preliminary descriptions for Levels 1 to 3 of qualification in the Malaysian Qualifications Framework (MQF), which will be proposed for use for equivalence checking between skills and academic and also to design a research framework of equivalence between academic and skills through APEL. Equivalence checking can facilitate the entry of an individual into institutions of higher learning by affirming the individual's pre-existing abilities relevant to the intended course of study. A qualitative approach was adopted for this research, and data were collected through three channels: document analysis, interviews and a questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to 54 respondents from various institutions (UTHM, ADTEC, KKTM and IKBN), while the interview involved three respondents. The data collected was analysed using the software, Statistical Package for Social Sciences 20.0 (SPSS 20.0). This study found that the descriptions proposed in this study are suitable for describing the learning outcomes for Levels 1 to 3 in the aspects of knowledge, skills and competencies. Finally, an equivalence checking framework was developed based on feedback from the respondents and also synthesised from the collected data.