Experiential Learning: Its Assessment and Accreditation

This is an exploration of the ways in which the assessment and accreditation of prior and current experiential learning (APEL) is being practised in higher education, further education, community and voluntary provision, training organizations and employment, in provision for the unemployed, youth training schemes and for updating and retraining. In the context of the current debate on improving access and raising participation rates in all forms of post-secondary education, it offers a way forward, showing that individuals can be encouraged and motivated to learn if they are enabled to develop a due sense of their own capacity to learn. Systematic assessment of prior and experiential learning can give credit for all the knowledge and skills that people have acquired through life, work experience and study which have not been formally attested through any educational or professional certification. The book looks at the background to the introduction of APEL in Britain, showing how it has progressed over 10 years into a day-to-day concern for policy-makers and providers of formal courses and training and development programmes in many sectors.