The orientation of VET towards lifelong learning and the development of models for crediting previously acquired skills and competence to formal VET programmes are important education policy goals of the Confederation and cantons in Switzerland. This is because the recognition of non-formal and informal education as parts of lifelong learning and the recognition of prior learning (RPL) towards formal educational qualifications facilitate social and economic integration and offer opportunities for further educational careers and mobility. At the same time, they lead to better use of the potential in the education system and thus serve to alleviate the shortage of skilled workers (Bohlinger, 2017; Klingovsky & Schmid, 2018).

In Switzerland, the legal basis for the recognition of non-formal and informal learning is in place, but the actual implementation varies greatly. At the level of professional education institutions (PEIs), the individual training providers have a great deal of leeway when deciding on RPL practices. The PEIs act according to their own organisational logics and in coordination with the situation on the labour market. The primary concern is whether to maintain a certain status quo or to develop the institutions. Thus, depending on how open or exclusive PEIs are, RPL is implemented to a greater or smaller extend (Damm, 2018; 2020). This leads to the situation that there are institutions with educational programmes in which RPL hardly exists and those in which a generous RPL is practised both in terms of access to an educational programme and in the dispensing of educational achievements to be completed (authors, 2021).

This paper explores the question of why the RPL at PEIs varies so much and what role organisational logics and external framework conditions play in this.

For the study, semi-structured interviews were analysed with four providers of different programmes at PEIs. The selected programmes in the occupational fields of social pedagogy, health (2x) and traffic and transport show a spectrum of different programmes and subsequently structurally different labour markets and allows across-group comparison. In the case of the two education programmes from the health sector, however, a comparison of organisational practices “within-group” is also made possible. The results show great heterogeneity in the current implementation of RPL in PEIs. Differences exist in various forms of RPL, the significance and which educational achievements (formal, non-formal and informal) can be credited, and in RPL practices.

Four criteria were identified which, from the perspective of the PEIs, speak for or against RPL. The first criterion concerns the external framework conditions, i.e. the situation on the labour market and in the occupational field. The second criterion lies in the design of the training and the training objective being pursued. Thirdly, the actual RPL practice is taken into account, and fourthly, a different understanding of competence acquisition and the handling of occupational experience has also been shown to justify RPL.

The analysis shows that the RPL practice at the PEIs is very heterogeneous despite the same framework conditions. This is due to their different connection to more or less specific occupational fields and labour markets and their tendency to either maintain their status in the educational market or to develop in order to open up to new clientele. In addition, it has been found that some PEIs have already created adapted offers to an adult clientele and have inserted these offers into their regular educational programmes. This means that in these cases recognition has already become the norm. If one wants to further promote RPL, the different organisational logics and framework conditions must be taken into account, because there will not be a solution that fits all PEIs equally.

Since there has been only little research on the implementation of RPL in professional education institutions, we explore our research question by using a qualitative comparative case study based on a small number of purposefully selected cases (Palmberger & Gingrich, 2014; Patton, 2015). Since the legal framework curricula for the professional study programmes are nationally regulated and delegate RPL implementation to the professional education institutions, we focused on the schools and their actual RPL practices. Because professional study programmes are very heterogeneous, and there has been little research to date that has studied the differences between them, we analysed four different programmes in PEIs: Airline pilot, Nursing specialist (2x) and social education worker. We compare: • General conditions of the labour market and the occupational field • Training and training objective at the respective PEI • Crediting practice and organisation (responsibility, financing, communication and marketing), • Beliefs of occupational experience and competence development With our choice of study programmes, we are able to compare framework conditions and RPL practices between different study programmes with more or less close ties to the labour market (across-group comparison). Comparing RPL practices in different organizations that offer the same study programme, which are subject to the same national requirements and cater to the same labour market structures, allows us to also focus on their organizational practices, beliefs and policies (within-group comparison; see Eisenhardt, 1989). This comparison strategy allows for capturing commonalities as well as differences between the selected cases. Furthermore, it allows to analyse the complex interplay between the organisational environment and policy and in the same and in different professional fields, aiming at “doing justice to the context in which the different cases are embedded” (Palmberger & Gingrich, 2014, p. 96) Typically, case studies use various data sources (Harrison et al., 2017). First, we conducted document analysis and analysed the national framework curricula of the selected study programmes, to identify the national requirements. Second, we analysed information on the websites and RPL documents of the selected schools, to analyse the respective organisational policies. Third, we performed semi-structured expert interviews (Bogner et al., 2009) with school principals and study program leaders to identify the different organizational practices and beliefs of occupational experience and competence development. The interview recordings were fully transcribed and thematically coded using NVivo software. Regarding analysis, we coded along the identified criteria (Kelle & Kluge, 2010).

The education programmes at Swiss PEIs differ considerably in the way they are organised and what goals are pursued with the education. Respondents' beliefs about the value (and thus the creditability) of educational achievements, such as prior professional but also life experience, as well as underlying beliefs about how competences are developed in a professional biography, form the foundation on which RPL are interpreted and decided. As PEIs are by definition adapted to the needs of (local) labour markets, organisational logics are also adapted to them. In the case of programmes that prepare very specifically for a particular occupation and, as in the case of transport pilots, even serve a particular employer, there is hardly any application of RPL and it corresponds to the organisational logic to keep the training as "exclusive" as possible. At the other end are training programmes that per se prepare for a wide range of possible activities and serve less specific labour markets. In the case of social pedagogues, for example, this means that RPL can be interpreted and applied broadly. In the middle are the health professions study programmes, which profile themselves differently depending on the PEI and align their RPL offerings to potential student groups. The different interpretations and practices of RPL due to different organisational logics leads to the realisation that if RPL is to be further promoted, these must be taken into account. There will hardly be general measures that are equally applicable and helpful for all institutions.

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