An academic path to recognize experiential learning - the case of Padua University

In Italy there has been a rich debate for many years and a substantial agreement between all institutions and social actors on the importance to be able to validate learning outcomes acquired in formal, non-formal and informal contexts. However, there is not yet agreement about ways and strategies to create a national system of validation and certification of competences acquired anyway. At the national level, an important turning point was with the law n. 92/2012 (and the following legislative decree n. 13/2013) concerning the reform of the labour market. It includes provisions for the establishment of the national system of competences certification and validation of non-formal and informal learning, stimulating all stakeholders to take an active role for this challenge. In this national frame, the University of Padua, with the collaboration of Career and work placement Service, has conducted a project in 2011, with the aim: › to promote an active process of recognition of competences that the adults may have already acquired through the workplace, vocational training courses or in other contexts in order to customise the educational path (gaining credits for entering study programmes). › to investigate the educational and guidance dimensions of the portfolio construction within a guided process for the development of awareness of the competences gained through reflection during and after the action. The project involved 44 employed students who completed a portfolio in order to make their competences explicit and comparable with the expected learning outcomes at the end of the degree in which they were enrolled. Adult students filled pre and post questionnaires and have been involved in follow up interviews. Moreover, the Research Group interviewed also teachers and advisers who evaluated the outcomes and supported participants. The research project identifies findings on: academic path, professional context, learning strategies. In particular, in this paper we focus our attention on critical and success factors concerning the model and the tools as well as on the role of adviser, for whom we identify the major relational and methodological competences. A long term implication of this project could be the possibility to build a University lifelong learning centre with services and processes to recognise prior experiential learning, to develop more flexible courses and to create partnerships with professional orders and associations. This may be an answer to working people’s needs, improving the dialogue between higher education and workplace, professional learning and academic learning, theory and practice. The challenges for the University in this field seem to concern: the ability to establish the prerequisites for the credits recognition and competences validation, namely the ability to combine the learning outcomes with competences and corresponding professional figures; the ability of the university to dialogue with the various stakeholders, both at national and local level. In this frame, Italian Universities, and Padua University too, face the challenge to create a culture of recognition of prior learning with the support of the academic RUIAP network (Rete Universitaria Italiana per l’Apprendimento Permanente), which gives them guidelines for the development of appropriate services.