Promoting, Assessing, Recognizing and Certifying Lifelong Learning

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Promoting and Recognising Lifelong Learning: Key Concepts, Practices and Emerging and Perennial Problems

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Promoting and Recognising Lifelong Learning: Introduction

      • Timo Halttunen, Mari Koivisto, Stephen Billett

      Pages 3-18

   3. Conceptualising Lifelong Learning in Contemporary Times

      • Stephen Billett

      Pages 19-35

   4. New Skills for New Jobs: Work Agency as a Necessary Condition for Successful Lifelong Learning

      • Christian Harteis, Michael Goller

      Pages 37-56

3. Promoting Lifelong Learning for Economic, Social and Cultural Purposes

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 57-57

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   2. Evaluating Informal Learning in the Workplace

      • Karen E. Watkins, Victoria J. Marsick, Miren Fernández de Álava

      Pages 59-77

   3. Recognising Learning and Development in the Transaction of Personal Work Practices

      • Raymond Smith

      Pages 79-95

   4. Understanding Work-Related Learning: The Role of Job Characteristics and the Use of Different Sources of Learning

      • David Gijbels, Vincent Donche, Piet Van den Bossche, Ingrid Ilsbroux, Eva Sammels

      Pages 97-107

   5. Experiential Learning: A New Higher Education Requiring New Pedagogic Skills

      • Anita Walsh

      Pages 109-129

   6. How Expertise Is Created in Emerging Professional Fields

      • Tuire Palonen, Henny P. A. Boshuizen, Erno Lehtinen

      Pages 131-149

   7. Continuing Education and Training at Work

      • Sarojni Choy, Raymond Smith, Ann Kelly

      Pages 151-171

   8. Lifelong Learning Policies and Practices in Singapore: Tensions and Challenges

      • Helen Bound, Magdalene Lin, Peter Rushbrook

      Pages 173-187

4. Recognising and Certifying Lifelong Learning: Policies and Practices

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 189-189

      PDF

   2. Professionalisation of Supervisors and RPL

      • Timo Halttunen, Mari Koivisto

      Pages 191-211

   3. Securing Assessors’ Professionalism: Meeting Assessor Requirements for the Purpose of Performing High-Quality (RPL) Assessments

      • Antoinette van Berkel

      Pages 213-234

   4. Problems and Possibilities in Recognition of Prior Learning: A Critical Social Theory Perspective

      • Fredrik Sandberg

      Pages 235-248

   5. Changing RPL and HRD Discourses: Practitioner Perspectives

      • Anne Murphy, Oran Doherty, Kate Collins

      Pages 249-264

   6. French Approaches to Accreditation of Prior Learning: Practices and Research

      • Vanessa Rémery, Vincent Merle

      Pages 265-280

   7. Recognising and Certifying Workers’ Knowledge: Policies, Frameworks and Practices in Prospect: Perspectives from Two Countries

      • Stephen Billett, Helen Bound, Magdalene Lin

      Pages 281-298

This book offers an international perspective on the growing interest worldwide in lifelong learning, particularly as it relates to learning beyond compulsory education and initial occupational preparation: across working life. Much of this interest is driven by key social and economic imperatives associated with the changing requirements of work and working life, the transformation of many occupations and lengthening working lives. The concerns in lifelong learning are also associated with individuals being able to engage in learning about cultural and social topics and practices that they had not so far. It is important to understand how this learning can be assessed, recognized and certified. Many in workforces across the world learn much of the knowledge that is required to maintain their employability through that work. Yet, that learning and that competency remains without recognition and certification while this could be particularly helpful for individuals seeking to sustain their employability or to extend their work into new occupations or workplaces. The first section of this book sets out the overall project and outlines the key concepts and issues. It illustrates why there is a need for promoting and recognizing lifelong learning and explains some of the terminology, concepts and key considerations. The second section informs about a range of policies and practices that are currently being deployed or have been deployed across a range of countries within Europe, Scandinavia and Asia. The last section comprises of contributions emphasizing the ways in which the assessment of workers learning takes place in different occupational contexts and different cultural contexts. The final chapter outlines how a systemic approach to recognizing lifelong learning might progress for a country which is promoting a continuing education and training system largely outside of tertiary education institutions.

• Certification of competencies
• Changing requirements of working life
• Learning across working life
• Learning beyond compulsory schooling
• Lengthening of working life
• Recognition of competencies

• Brahea Centre, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

  Timo Halttunen, Mari Koivisto

• Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

  Stephen Billett

Policies and ethics