Session Information
SES B 03, Paper Session
Paper Session
Contribution
Recognition of prior learning (RPL) has been part of higher education and adult education policy for long time, but in varying ways in different times and places. RPL comprises varying processes of assessing, documenting and giving recognition to prior learning, irrespective of when, where and how learning has taken place. The domination of formal education is challenged when RPL provides new possibilities for valuing learning and knowledge from informal and non-formal learning contexts.
The introduction of RPL in higher education is a challenge for complex changes in commodification of education in a neo-liberal marketplace, around globalization of information, around increasing participation, and around the future of university as a public good (Murphy 2006; Fraser 1995). Barnett (2003; 2000) calls it an age of ‘super-complexity’ that is both post-industrial and postmodern.
RPL sits at the privatization, globalization, marketisation and commodification of higher education where on one hand defends the traditional concept of university and another promotes a neo-liberal global market system with higher education regarded as a tradable commodity (Murphy 2006, 2003). Marketisation in higher education encompasses several developments such as the spread of the market discourse, massification, and the increased numbers of private providers that is a notion for arrival of increased mobility and increased competition (DeBoer 2002 in Murphy 2006). Murphy (2006) argues that move to common national and transnational frameworks of qualification is evidence of ‘the standardization of trading within the educational marketplace’ within an enterprise culture where education products can be purchased, moved, compared and traded with ease.
The concept of RPL is problematic in the higher education context because the predominant perception of an institution of higher education is as a place where people come to learn, or to be taught rather than one where people bring their existing knowledge for recognition or sharing (Peters 2005). The effect this ethos has had on approaches to RPL is that emphasis is placed on the importance of learning being presented in a form which meets academic criteria, even though it has not taken place in an academic setting (Peters 2005). Thus the power of recognizing knowledge and its value rests uniquely with the university and therefore in order for knowledge or learning to be recognized by the university it must be presented according to norms and regulations laid down by the institution.
This paper focuses on fallowing questions:
Is implementing RPL changing university setting? What changes are seen by RPL main actors (applicants, assessors, counsellors)?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Barnett, R. (2003). Beyond All Reasons. Living with Ideology in the University. SRHE & Open University Press Barnett, R. (2000). University Knowledge in an Age of Supercomplexity. Higher Education, 40 (4). Murphy, A. (2006). From Personal to Public Learning: philosophical, policy and pedagogical challenges of APEL in higher education. [PhD thesis] The Department of Adult and Community Education, Faculty of Arts: National University of Ireland Maynooth Fraser, W. (1995). Learning from Experience. Empowerment or Incorporation? NIACE Peters, H. (2005). Contested discourses: assessing the outcomes of learning from experience for the award of credit in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 30 ( 3).
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