In view of rapid technological and economic changes, lifelong learning has gained significant importance. Recognition of prior learning (RPL) is often said to facilitate lifelong learning. RPL refers to an individual having already achieved learning outcomes during the course of life which are then (publicly) accepted, accredited and somehow valued (Bohlinger, 2017). Learning experiences may include previously received formal qualifications and certificates, as well as competencies acquired in a non-formal (such as continuous education) or informal (such as work and life experience) learning context. Advantages of RPL are claimed for two different levels. For individuals, RPL is said to enable social and economic integration and open new opportunities for further education and career progression and mobility. For society as a whole, RPL can leverage existing potential to alleviate skilled worker shortages (Klingovsky & Schmid, 2018).

The education system is a central arena of RPL, which can facilitate admission to or shorten study programmes, especially in vocational education and training, secondary adult education and tertiary education (Andersson et al., 2013). RPL makes entry to certain education and training programmes more flexible by enabling prior learning experiences to be recognised. On the one hand, students who do not fully meet the formal access requirements are admitted on an individual basis. On the other, prior learning, if recognised, allows students to dispense with parts of the programme or certain examinations (Maurer, 2019). However, not all knowledge is valued in a formal way, as ‘there are always discourses at play that position some knowledge and learning as valuable while excluding other forms of knowledge’ (Andersson et al., 2013, p. 408).

It is generally assumed that it is easier to implement RPL in vocational and professional programmes than in academic ones because of their greater proximity to fields of practice (Harris & Wihak, 2017). Still, professional programmes – although practically oriented – are themselves very heterogeneous, and little research has, to date, studied the differences between them. Therefore, this paper addresses this research gap. It explores the RPL practices of professional education institutions in Switzerland and formulates the following research question: how do professional education institutions regulate, practise and justify RPL? Professional education institutions in Switzerland offer study programmes at a tertiary education level, such as nursing, business administration and hotel management. They are a particularly interesting object of study because their students are adults who often already have considerable learning experience.

Based on the current state of research (Cooper & Harris, 2013; Cooper et al., 2017; Harris & Wihak, 2017; Maurer, 2019; Pitman & Vidovich, 2013), we start from the premise that RPL practices in higher education institutions always take place within distinct organisational environments shaped by national RPL policies, professional bodies and the nature of the labour market. However, within these environments, higher education institutions also have room for manoeuvre and create their own organisational policy and culture, which promotes or hinders RPL. In addition, the knowledge domain of the study programme, pedagogic agency and individual attitudes of the persons responsible for RPL are guiding factors.

Since there has been little research regarding RPL practices in professional education institutions, we explore our research question by using qualitative comparative case studies (Palmberger & Gingrich, 2014; Patton, 2015). In Switzerland, the framework curricula for professional study programmes are nationally regulated, and RPL implementation is delegated to professional education institutions; hence, we wanted to focus on schools and their actual RPL practices. Comparing RPL practices in different organisations that offer the same study programme, are subject to the same national requirements and cater to the same labour market needs allows us to focus on organisational cultures and policies as well as pedagogic agency and the individual attitudes of organisational gatekeepers. As professional study programmes are very heterogeneous, we also wanted to compare different ones. Therefore, our units of analysis are the two different professional study programmes of hospitality management and social education. We compared RPL practices and the underlying motives first within the same professional study programmes (within-group comparison) and then between different ones (across-group comparison) (Eisenhardt, 1989). This comparison strategy enabled us to capture commonalities as well as differences between the selected cases. Typically, case studies use various data sources (Harrison et al., 2017). First, we conducted document analysis of the national framework curricula to identify the national requirements. Second, we conducted document analysis of the websites and RPL documents of the selected schools to analyse the respective codified organisational policies. Third, we performed semi-structured expert interviews (Bogner et al., 2009) with school principals and study programme leaders to identify organisational RPL practices and the individual attitudes and pedagogical concepts of gatekeepers. In total, we conducted four semi-structured interviews. The interview guideline included the following topics: RPL practices within the organisation, motives for RPL, and developments, innovations and challenges in this field. The interviews lasted between 42 and 113 minutes. The audio recordings were fully transcribed, and thematic coding was completed with the help of NVivo software. Regarding analysis, we coded along the identified sensitising concepts (Kelle & Kluge, 2010) according to the extant literature. However, we were also attentive to further categories that emerged from the data (Roulston, 2014).

When comparing the cases, we identified heterogeneous RPL practices. Schools that offer the same professional study programmes and train their students for the same professional profile and labour market needs regulate, practise and justify RPL very differently. The beliefs of organisational gatekeepers seem central to understanding the heterogeneity of RPL practices: people who are responsible for the RPL of the same study programmes have different pedagogical beliefs, which vary in terms of the purpose of education, notion of the ideal professional and assumptions of how learning best takes place. Specific pedagogical concepts pursued by a school also play an important role, and both elements serve to justify heterogeneous RPL practices. The identified heterogeneity of schools has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, schools with their own RPL policy and specific pedagogical concepts can give themselves their own particular profile, cultivate a certain image and attract more students. On the other hand, specific pedagogical concepts can make RPL more difficult, as candidates (for example, dropouts from other higher education institutions) have difficulty obtaining credits for their existing learning outcomes. Finally, heterogeneous RPL practices lead to unequal treatment of students with non-linear educational pathways. They can be rejected by one school but admitted to another, even though both schools train for the same professional qualification. Potential students cannot always be aware of this heterogeneity, as, in the cases we studied, not all RPL regulations were publicly available. However, even if RPL regulations are published, students do not necessarily know what RPL practice the school follows, since the execution of the regulations is in the hands of gatekeepers, who are very diverse in their attitudes and beliefs. The findings of our study therefore call for future research on the central role of individual gatekeepers.

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