Contribution to the Dublin Conference

1
Functions and expectations on Credit Systems in
Training and Education

• Contribution to the Dublin Conference
• Towards 2010 - Common Themes and Approaches
  across Higher Education and Vocational Education
  and Training in Europe
• Group 2 Building credit systems and improving
  transparency
• 08. March 2004

by Isabelle Le Mouillour Centre for Research on
Higher Education and Work (WZ I) University of
Kassel, Germany
2
Functions and Expectations on Credit Systems

• The stakeholders
• Mobility and the role of credit systems
• Challenges of recognition and transparency

3
The stakeholders

• In the EU
• 58 of young people under 30 years are pupils or
  students
• 32 of adult learners are engaged in learning
• At least two main logics (within VET)
• Education/training logic
• Employment/labour market logic

4
Stakeholders of the VET system
5
Overview of European VET and HE students
(2000/2001)
6
The learners

• Heterogeneity professional experience,
  employment situation, nature of work, gender,
  motivation, legal situation, health situation,
  age and status.
• Datas
• HE VET gt 50 Mio. persons (2000-2001)ECTS
  100.000 ERASMUS students (2000)LdV 76.000
  mobile students (2000-2002)
• Results Personal development (self-esteem),
  language skills, understandings of different
  cultures, work techniques and organisations,
  employability
• Students (HE VET) expect recognition of
  mobility experience
• abroad, a procedure including credits allocation
  and documentation

7
Involvement of stakeholders in ECVET?

• The degree of involvement depends on the phase
  concerned!
• In the definition phase
• Role of the Technical Working Group on Credit
  Transfer
• Role of the Leonardo da Vinci Programmes
• Role of the Virtual Community on Credit Transfer
• Do not underestimate the degree-ocracy!

8
Mobility schemes
Mobility Education Training Functionalities
sectors 1) Geographical ? HE Transfer 2)
Vocational/ VET new HE Accumulation
occupational VET new HE Accumulation
VET Transfer Accumulation 3) Outside
- Inside VET Transfer
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Pre-requisites

• Credit system can only work as means of transfer
  and accumulation of educational attainments
  within parts of a course programme, if a course
  programme is sub-divided into a number of
  relatively small parts (courses, modules, units,
  etc.) and if the assessment of educational
  achievements is similarly sub-divided according
  to those parts, whereby the overall assessment is
  cumulative.

10
Recognition

• Credits acquired within various national VET
  systems will rather never be 100 equivalent. The
  point is rather to define how wide variations
  could/should be allowed.
• The credit-type quantitative accounting system
  ECTS in fact leads to a higher degree of
  recognition than other forms of recording and
  recognising study achievement abroad upon return
  to the home university .
• The quantitative measurement facilitates but does
  not guarantee recognition. This depends much on
  regulations at national and European levels
  concerning what has been learned and what can be
  learned.

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Recognition and Transparency

• The credit system needs information as well as
  understandable and compatible recognition
  procedures comparable to a quality management.
• Definition of quantitative equivalences via
  credits
• Definition of qualitative equivalences.
• Need for a minimum of assessment of foreign
  qualifications. Recognition is about assessing a
  foreign qualification with a view to finding a
  correct place and path in another countrys
  education or employment system.

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Towards unification?

• Integration of general and vocational curricula
• Reduction/elimination of differences between
  educational tracks
• Development of seamless opportunities for access
  and progression in lifelong learning
• Grey zones
• ECTS and ECVET two credit systems within
  lifelong learning?
• Value of vocational qualifications and experience
  for HE for VET by mobility?

13
Possible level structure
VET Level 1 Attestation of competence VET
Level 2 Certificate VET Level 3 Diploma
certifying successful completion of a
short training course VET Level
4 Diploma certifying successful completion of
an intermediate training course VET Level
5 Diploma certifying successful completion of
a higher training course VET Level
6 Diploma certifying successful completion of
a long higher training course HE Level 1
Bachelor degree HE Level 2 Master
degree HE Level 3 Doctorate degree