5 New demands and challenges

The development of access to competence assessment within the education system gives rise to new demands and challenges for the educational institutions and the many different users (students, employers, educational institutions) of the competences provided by the education system. This applies particularly to the following areas:

Quality assurance of education programmes
It is crucial that the quality and standard of education programmes are maintained. The users on the labour market and within the education system must not legitimately question the value of the competences that any given individual has achieved, including any credit for prior learning, within the education system.

Working with competence assessments makes new demands on the guidance provided by the educational institutions, on their teaching staff's competences and on their organisational structure. With the competence assessments comes the requirement for education programmes that are flexibly organised in accordance with the needs and potential of the individual student, without this having a detrimental effect on the quality, leading to higher drop-out rates or increasing the average completion time. It will pose a challenge to the educational institutions in their planning and in the pedagogical development of the teaching.

Assessment and recognition of prior learning within the education system must therefore be supported by tools, contributing towards ensuring quality. These tools include the following:

• Guidance for the educational institutions regarding objective, scope and terms for carrying out competence assessments.
• The educational institutions render visible the requirements and procedures for assessing prior learning, for instance on their Web sites.
• Development of relevant methods and tools for competence assessment within the individual areas of education and training and at the educational institutions.
• Support for the development of guidance and teaching competences at the educational institutions.
• Quality checks carried out at the educational institutions as part of the general monitoring and evaluations of the different areas of education as and when required.

In addition, more work is needed on deciding how education programme objectives and standards can be described as competence objectives in future education orders, competence descriptions and study plans, etc. This will provide a better basis for the assessment and recognition of the prior learning that an individual has acquired, and will therefore also contribute towards ensuring quality.

Better utilisation of the resources of the education system
Recognition of prior learning can contribute to a more targeted provision of education and training, and better utilisation of available financial resources. For many people on the labour market – not least the low skilled – an offer of competence assessment could be the first step towards a more targeted upgrading of skills and thereby also, from society's point of view, a better utilisation of resources.

It is attractive to everybody that we economise with time and money spent on education and competence development. In this way, we avoid waste and unnecessary education, as nobody needs to learn the same thing twice. This also means that a greater number of people can participate in education and training for the same money if individuals get their courses reduced or are given the option of acquiring formal qualifications on the basis of recognition of prior learning.

As a consequence, there may be a need to use management tools that can help regulate the activity in connection with prior learning assessments, ensuring that within the budget available, priority continues to be awarded to those with the lowest level of education and training. In fact, the Government will seek the introduction of a graduated user fee, which means that an individual competence assessment remains free of charge for the low skilled.

It is also important that the educational institutions have the proper financial incentives to recognise the prior learning of any given applicant. There is a delicate balance between offering financial incentives that encourage the institutions to recognise applicants' prior learning and ensuring that recognition is only given when due so as to avoid a detrimental effect on quality. We must make sure that the financial incentives support the educational institutions in developing a sure and well-balanced method of recognising the individual's prior learning.

Access to clear information and guidance
Access to clear information and guidance is essential for both the individual applicant and companies. Thus, the guidance system must be in a position to provide its users with clear information on the possibilities of competence assessment in relation to the education system. Staff must be able to refer to relevant educational institutions and organisations etc. and every effort must be made to foster a good working relationship with the information/guidance services with the various employment and integration initiatives both locally and regionally.

The guidance portal, which was developed in connection with the Government's youth guidance reform, will also come to include information and guidance on competence assessment in addition to the tools that users can avail themselves of in order to clarify and document prior learning in connection with an individual competence assessment.

Interaction between work and leisure pursuits
Recognition of prior learning also places a particular focus on the ways in which an individual's competences can be made visible and documented. Thus, the methods and tools that the individual can use to describe and document his or her prior learning are of great importance for the assessment and recognition vis-à-vis the education system, and they will also be of benefit to the individual on the labour market, for instance in connection with changing jobs.

The individual should also hold part of the responsibility for documenting his or her competences acquired at work or during leisure pursuits, though it must remain on a voluntary basis. Moreover, it is essential that a competence documentation relating to an individual's working life is based on a close and trusting relationship between the individual and the management at his or her place of work. In fact, there are already a variety of tools, developed by companies, organisations related to the labour market and others, and there are also a number of tools available for job seeking (CV tools) that can be used as part of a competence assessment.

However, there is also the need for developing documentation tools in the form of a portfolio in order to ensure the best possible interaction between people's work and leisure pursuits – and the competence assessment within the education system. The experience gained in other countries, particularly in connection with development work in Norway both in companies and within the liberal adult education and voluntary sectors, shows that it contributes towards good results. Such documentation tools should be developed in close cooperation with the social partners, the liberal adult education and voluntary sectors and other relevant stakeholders in order to achieve the greatest possible use and effect. Documentation of prior learning is also included in the work undertaken by the Folk High School Committee.

This page is included in the publication "Recognition of Prior Learning within the education system" as chapter 5 of6
© The Ministry of Education 2005