When analyzing the impact posed by the paradigm of education throughout life, we notice that many have discussed the need of training at different stages of life, but few have addressed the actual revolution this approach poses: the demise of the hegemony of formal education as the sole place for training. Granting the same level of accreditation to learning acquired at different settings implies a radical change in the educational systems planning, particularly vocational training and higher education, while also impacting the certification of professional qualifications arising from such settings. This fact has progressively emerged not out of pedagogical conviction but out of the pressure exerted by the market, which demands the achievement of economic development and employability, and cannot afford losing or wasting human capital. Hence, in order to enhance the professional training level it is necessary to promote more flexible learning pathways, facilitating the transition from study to work, promoting the validation of non-formal and informal learning (COM 2012a). Therefore, it becomes crucial to acknowledge acquired skills, regardless of the setting where they were obtained, by means of objective and rigorous criteria that recognize the fulfillment of equal academic purposes.

Over the last decade the European Union has been very sensitive to this issue, because "its impact is important for helping to better match skills and labor demand, promoting greater transferability of skills across sectors, and facilitating the mobility in the European labor market "(COM, 2012c). In this sense, and according to the European guidelines, the Spanish University agreed to include different learning paths as valid scenarios that share the same official recognition.

We are not facing a new situation; the definition developed by the International Labor Organization (ILO) more than 3 decades ago states: "formal recognition of occupational qualifications of workers regardless of how they were acquired" (1979). The acknowledgment of learning requires a process of evaluation, supported by methodologies and credible, valid and reliable tools, which recognize and certify a person as having acquired certain level of achievement in specific skills (COM, 2012c). Thus, the level of acquired skills by training in non-formal and / or informal spaces is equated, though this is not the place to address the discussion concerning the content and validity of both settings.

Now, while we already have a body of research and proven experience regarding the certification of formal learning that supports its validity and rigor, this is not the case regarding skills acquired in other settings. Further research and contrasting experiences are needed. Certainly the tools of formal evaluation assessment cannot be used, given their complexity, when facing this form of contextual learning that intends to become a formal certification. In this sense, the goal is to develop an assessment process that recognizes and accredits skills achieved by means of informal processes, such as experience acquired throughout life. 

Although this method of validation of learning has been broadly implemented in many European countries, such possibility was not available for Spain until its incorporation into the European Higher Education Area. Therefore, the Faculty of Education at UNED has launched a pioneering experience in Spain which aim is the recognition of professional experience in the Social Education Degree, thus addressing student’s rights while serving as an innovative experience that lays the foundation of this procedure of recognition, according to rigor, transparency and objectivity criteria that focus on every process of evaluation and validation of learning. Our goal is to satisfy this new demand, in order to develop within a reflective practice a procedure of evaluation that enables the recognition of quality professional experience within the qualifications offered by higher education.

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