Abstract for Equnet symposium 23-24 November 2010 – Leon Cremonini
Abstract for Equity Symposium
Ljubljana, 23-24 November 2010
By Leon Cremonini
The Dutch higher education system prides itself of being accessible to all. As yet,
debates about selection have yielded little in the direction of changing this
fundamental belief in Dutch society. However, to access higher education students
must make important choices at an early age through what is commonly labelled
“early tracking”. In fact, early tracking is an indirect form of selection that can inhibit
participation of certain groups in society. For example, the socio-economically
disenfranchised, immigrants, citizens of immigrant extraction etc. may be
“ineligible” for university education because they have not followed the proper
secondary education track or, once admitted through (cumbersome) transfer
mechanisms, be more likely to drop out.
An increasingly adopted strategy worldwide is the “recognition of prior learning”
(more appropriately called “valuation” of prior learning or VPL). VPL takes stock of
individual experiences acquired outside the class room. Potentially, it enables
individuals, who would otherwise not fulfil academic requirements, to access higher
education and ultimately obtain a tertiary degree. It is a tool to ensure that in today’s
context, in which job security is rarely guaranteed, people remain employable.
Though strongly advocated in European circles, many question VPL’s ability to
uphold the quality of the skills it purports to recognise and reward. VPL is
implemented to different extents and with varying degrees of success across Europe.
For example, France is typically portrayed as a VPL success story; in the
Netherlands, VPL is gaining grounds amidst disagreements on its feasibility
between the universities of applied sciences and the research universities; in
Germany, until recently the VPL discourse remained largely marginal in the
country’s complex formal system and rigid learning culture. A further twist comes
from internationally mobile students and from the European internal market, which
raises the question whether an experiential portfolio built in one country should be
accepted in another.
Though still controversial, VPL can be seen as an innovative approach to equity for
several reasons. It is overarching, i.e. it targets different levels (individuals,
organisations/businesses and the HE system); it relates to the problem of ensuring
equal opportunities to quality higher education (new codes need to be put into place
to ensure this is not just window dressing to improve participation statistics, e.g. to
reach certain targets); and it aims at achieving the dimension of “access with
success” and not only access “with participation”
The question is, then: does VPL really create more equitable chances for
disenfranchised social groups (particularly, but not only, immigrants) to participate
in tertiary education or, as some would argue, does it lower higher education,
promoting, de facto, “degree inflation”. Either way, where do the boundaries of such
a strategy lie? Should VPL expand to encompass graduate qualifications (and
potentially the whole array of tertiary qualifications) or, as its detractors would
contend, should it be further limited (e.g. to secondary professional qualifications)?
Contact:
Leon Cremonini
Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies – University of Twente
Tel. +31 53 489 3807
E-mail: l.cremonini@utwente.nl
Enschede, the Netherlands
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