Recognition of Prior Learning: A major economic opportunity?
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) has been available to learners across many countries for some time, mainly within the Higher Education sector. It has facilitated the recognition of different forms of learning allowing people to enter a degree or gain credit for their learning, in order to move into the second or third year of a degree programme.
However, RPL has wider potential than just Higher Education. It can be used to support different groups such as veterans, refugees or the jobless, into work through effective skills recognition ultimately leading to less reliance of benefits. It can help employers to better understand the skills of their employees allowing effective skills utilisation and help them better understand the skills required for particular job roles allowing for effective recruitment.
The ability to upskill or re-skill quickly is becoming more important in our rapidly changing environment and RPL enables this to happen which saves money, increases earnings and ensures minimum time away from the workplace.
In summary, effective use of RPL can both save a country’s economy money whilst supporting its economic objectives, if approached in the right way.
Countries across the world are increasingly seeing the benefits of RPL. In Europe, the 2012 EU Council recommendation for the Validation of Non-formal and Informal Learning (VNFIL) led to significant progress by many countries in Europe in implementing VNFIL strategies.
Fast forward eleven years and the latest progress overview report from Cedefop, the European Centre for Vocational Training shows:
VNFIL, in the 27 EU countries covered by the report, is progressing and now plays a central role in employment and skills policies and strategies.
European labour markets are becoming increasingly dynamic with skills gaps and shortages to be addressed.
New jobs are being created in digital and environmental sectors.
Employers are looking into new ways to better understand and utilise the skills of their employees.
Several countries have integrated VNFIL into overarching skills strategies and others are in the process of looking at this possibility.
Integrating RPL or VNFIL into a national skills strategy ensures that the skills of everyone are contributing towards a positive economic future. Some countries have prioritised different groups within their strategies. For example, Germany’s skills strategy focuses on using validation for low qualified individuals with a wealth of working experience, to ensure their skills and learning is more visible, and Norway is prioritising validation in the labour market with an emphasis on supporting migrants.
But the importance of ensuring skills recognition for everyone and providing the processes and accessibility to this, is the key to success of any economy particularly if integrated into an overarching skills strategy. By doing this, RPL or VNFIL becomes embedded in the culture of education and lifelong learning and everyone within that population can actively contribute to economic success.
Further Reading
Overview Report: European inventory of validation of informal and non-formal learning 2023 | CEDEFOP
Cedefop also provides regular VNFIL update reports by country which can be found here:
European inventory on validation of non-formal and informal learning | CEDEFOP
