Beyond Manitoba
It’s important to analyze your company’s skills and knowledge needs prior to beginning a work-based learning initiative. A detailed analysis of how your employees actually deliver value and what they need to do so will drive solutions that provide the greatest impact for the fewest dollars
Derrin Kent has been training staff, at all levels from Director to groundsman, in the corporate sector since 1992. His company, The Development Manager, specializes in building work-based learning systems and corporate communities of practice using open-source technologies.
Standards drive credibility for validating non‑formal and informal learning
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Academic credentials are often automatically included in job requirements because they are seen as minimum standards for skills and knowledge.
But current practice in Europe is placing increasing emphasis on recognizing learning in the workplace because that is where the rubber hits the road in terms of effectiveness.
John Konrad has been tracking these issues for several years as a vocational instructor and an internationally recognized researcher.
It’s a question of currency and credibility. If you are talking about summative assessment, it’s got to be the same standard and it’s got to be done in the same way because otherwise RPL is seen as a soft option and its credibility and its currency is lacking.
Which is a shame, because in many cases if you are testing people in the workplace your assessment, all things being equal, is likely to be more reliable and valid than people sitting in a formal examination in a college or a university.
And I think anybody in Europe would have no problems with this, and you see it comes out in the latest version of the European guidelines.
NB: See more in the European guidelines for validating non-formal and informal learning (2009)