Micro-credentials have moved from the margins to the mainstream in post-secondary education policy. For example, they have been accredited within the New Zealand Qualifications Framework, and included in a review of the Australian Qualifications Framework. Colleges and universities in many countries are seeking to introduce them. They are linked to other policy aspirations such as stackable credentials, badges and ‘e-passports’. Micro-credentials vary in size, but essentially are small components of learning that are certified that may also contribute to a formal qualification (PWC, 2018). The promise of micro-credentials is that they will enable individuals to keep up with the relentless pace of change in the knowledge society and meet the future needs of work, and provide disadvantaged people with access to credentials that will recognise their skills and lead to jobs (Ifenthaler, Bellin-Mularski, & Mah, 2016). They are also legitimated by progressive discourses of student centred learning that focus on self-regulated learning, self-efficacy, personalisation, and self-realisation (for example, see Wills & Xie, 2016) This paper argues that first, micro-credentials are an extension of competency-based education models of curriculum which are based on disaggregated and atomised skills that deny students access to disciplinary knowledge and to the criteria used within disciplines to judge knowledge claims. Moreover, they represent the incursion of competency-based education curriculum from vocational education where it has been dominant for about 30 years, to higher education. Second, they contribute to the fragmentation of work through tying micro-credentials to disaggregated skills and undermine the link between qualifications and occupations. They further shift the responsibility from the employer to the individual to invest in their skills and second-guess the requirements of the labour market so that the individual is ‘market ready’ and able to enact a ‘market performance’ (Brown & Souto-Otero, 2018). This paper will show the connections between micro-credentials and competency-based education curriculum. It will demonstrate how micro-credentials exclude disadvantaged students from access to powerful knowledge and further entrench their disadvantage in the labour market. It will examine the progressivist language of legitimation of micro-credentials to show how this has been recontextualised and co-opted by instrumental discourses that emphasise the realisation of the self in the market through investment in human capital (Bernstein, 2000).

Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity (2nd ed. ed.). Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Brown, P., & Souto-Otero, M. (2018). The end of the credential society? An analysis of the relationship between education and the labour market using big data. Journal of Education Policy, early online doi:10.1080/02680939.2018.1549752 Ifenthaler, D., Bellin-Mularski, N., & Mah, D.-K. (Eds.). (2016). Foundation of digital badges and micro-credentials: demonstrating and recognizing knowledge and competencies. Switzerland: Springer. PWC. (2018). Lifelong Skills: Equipping Australians for the future of work. Retrieved from Melbourne: < http://www.atn.edu.au/siteassets/publications/lifelong-skills.pdf > viewed 12 Janaury 2019 Wills, C., & Xie, Y. (2016). Toward a Comprehensive Theoretical Framework for Designing Digital Badges. In D. Ifenthaler, N. Bellin-Mularski, & D.-K. Mah (Eds.), Foundation of digital badges and micro-credentials: demonstrating and recognizing knowledge and competencies (pp. 261-271). Switzerland: Springer.