Barbara
Merrill / Stephen Hill
Barbara Merrill und Stephen Hill sind Senior Lecturers an der University
of Warwick, England
Während sich die Diskussion um APEL (Assessment of Prior Experimental Learning) in Deutschland noch im Anfangsstadium befindet und hier vor allem in der beruflichen Weiterbildung stattfindet, rücken Fragen der Anerkennung und Bewertung informellen und nicht-formalen Lernens und der Zugänge zur Weiterbildung für Bildungsbenachteiligte auf europäischer Ebene zunehmend in den Mittelpunkt. APEL ist auch Thema eines aktuellen SOKRATES-Forschungsprojektes der Europäischen Kommission. - Barbara Merrill und Stephen Hill beschreiben APEL-Ansätze und Konzepte aus England, wo langjährige und umfangreiche Erfahrungen vorliegen.
The changing economy and labour market in post industrial
society has led to discussions at policy level about the need for lifelong
learning and a learning society. A front end model of education is no longer
felt to suffice if a society is to compete globally. European governments
view education as a key to economic success. Widening access for adults
to education, therefore, becomes a political imperative. Since the early
1980s in the UK strategies to widen access of adults to further and higher
education have been introduced. In universities, for example, adults consisted
of 45% of new undergraduate entrants in 1995/96. The implementation of Assessment
of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) has been an important element in the
widening access strategy and will play a still more substantial role in
the future.
This paper examines the role of APEL in facilitating the access and learning
of adults by focusing on developments in further and higher education in
the UK. The authors are currently involved in a project on APEL with several
European partners, funded by the European Commission. APEL by taking into
account a person’s prior learning experience, whether it was in the
workplace, home, community, voluntary work, leisure or earlier formal education,
offers the potential to reach non-participants who may not otherwise consider
returning to formal education as an adult. APEL is essentially about learning
from experience. APEL also raises interesting questions about learning and
assessment processes, what constitutes knowledge and the interaction and
relationship between formal and informal learning. For the learner there
is the question of whether or not APEL empowers the learner.
The impetus for the development of APEL in the UK during
the early 1980s came from the USA. American organisations such as the Council
for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) offered support and guidance
to UK organisations through the UK based Learning from Experience Trust.
The idea also gained support from key institutions such as the Council for
National Academic Awards (CNAA). The latter funded a large scale project
on APEL, undertaken by the Trust, during the mid 1980s.
In 1992 the binary system of higher education was abolished and polytechnics
became universities. Traditionally the ‘new’ universities (former
polytechnics) have a higher proportion of adult students and a greater volume
of vocational courses.
In the ‘new’ universities APEL is more centralised, covering a
wide range of levels and curriculum. There is likely to be a co-ordinator
with people trained in the use of APEL in most departments. ‘New’
universities are also likely to have an APEL policy across the institution.
APEL is largely confined to a particular department in the ‘old’
universities. This is usually a department of adult and continuing education.
"Given the traditional autonomy of Higher Education (HE) in the UK,
government and its agencies rely on techniques of persuasion rather than
legalisation to steer institutional policy and practice" (Davies and
Gallacher, 1997).
The need for upskilling of the workforce facilitated closer links between
HE and industry. APEL appealed to the Training Agency of the Department
of Employment as having a role to play in re-training and upskilling. Numerous
projects were funded. Policy support of APEL was indicated in the foreword
by the Secretary of State for Employment to ‘1990s: The Skills Decade’.
Since the late 1980s another prominent user of APEL has been the further
education sector (this sector is post 16). Further Education (FE) colleges
are now widespread users of APEL. Most colleges have an APEL/APL co-ordinator
as APEL is centralised within the institution. However, in many FE colleges
it has become embedded within institutional practices that it is difficult
to isolate it. Policies and guidelines on APEL are now standard in many
colleges.
The initial function of APEL was to offer an alternative access route into higher education. This has now broadened to include not only admission but accreditation, advanced standing and as a contribution to learning. APEL has increasingly been used by industry and colleges to enable individuals to gain National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) without having to attend a formal course. For women APEL has also been an important means of gaining recognition for life experiences to assist them in returning to work or study.
The student perspective of APEL is necessarily different
from the institutional perspective but is nevertheless driven by the purpose
which the institution is prioritising. This brings us back to the assessment
versus accreditation issue, and both terms can be off-putting to potential
mature students who are endeavouring to return to formal learning from a
background of minimal or non-existent formal qualification.
Most characteristically, mature students become aware of APEL as a means
of gaining entry to educational establishments. Students making preliminary
enquiries about how to get in without formal qualifications are commonly
referred to advisers who encourage them to make an APEL claim. The first
hurdle here is that of comprehending what APEL is about: personal experience
tells us that potential students hope, even expect, that their experience
will be enough on its own to secure admission. We are very used to the familiar
story which runs something like "Well, I’ve worked in a hospital
(or school, or whatever) for years and years, so I don’t need to know
any more about that stuff. Why can’t I miss out the introductory parts
of the course?" The answer may well eventually be "Yes, you can",
but the first task of anyone advising such incoming students is to convey
the message that the experience is not enough on its own, and that what
does matter is to demonstrate the learning which has occurred as
a result of that experience. Furthermore, it is also necessary to explain
that the student must demonstrate that the learning has occurred at a level
which is appropriate for the study which he or she desires to undertake.
The potential student must then be led through the processes of making an
APEL claim. Typically, this will involve preparing and presenting a portfolio
of evidence of experience and reflection on the learning and understanding
which has been acquired through that experience.
The SOCRATES-APEL project provides evidence to suggest that use of APEL
processes for actual accreditation is more common in the UK than in other
members of the European Union, and the UK also seems to offer more examples
of the use of APEL as part of the learning/teaching process for students
who have succeeded in gaining entry and may actually be well advanced in
their studies. Examples of this latter application of APEL are the prior
learning project and dissertation which can be offered by part-time students
at the University of Warwick. The prior learning project is undertaken by
students who have entered the university and are at the beginning of their
studies. It replaces one course unit (out of a total of 12) and is seen
as an opportunity to develop students’ writing and research skills.
The prior learning dissertation can be offered by part-time students as
one of their terminal honours modules. It is a substantial affair which
replaces one honours level course and is expected to conform to all the
usual requirements in terms of bibliographical research and use of footnotes,
whilst maintaining a strong reflective element. These projects and dissertations
go well beyond the activity which is involved in preparing APEL claims for
admission or credit, since they are much more closely focused on particular
aspects of previous experience and lead students more deeply into research
and other academic skills. Experience has demonstrated that these activities
centred around prior learning have substantial benefit in terms of preparing
students to work on other courses within their degree programmes as well
as providing them with an opportunity to take pride in and to value their
own achievements. The prior learning project has also had one unanticipated
outcome. The University of Warwick, like so many other higher education
institutions, has the inflexibility that students are admitted to programmes
each October, even though mature students may appear to seek entry at any
other point in the other. The APEL projects can be discussed before entry
and students can then commence work on them as a valuable bridging activity
between the offer of a place and the start of the academic year.
It is clear that the student experience of APEL does and must vary enormously
from initially painful to ultimately enriching, but the benefit to students
is immense, not merely in concrete terms (i.e. offers of places and/or credit)
but through the development of the reflective faculty which is an implicit
and central aspect of any APEL procedure.
Prior learning is part of and also shapes an individual’s
biography. In reflecting upon their learning experiences learners are also
reflecting upon their life experiences. APEL is an important element in
a person’s learning career. Learning, therefore, stems from experience
and involves "a dynamic, ongoing interactive process between knowing
and doing" (Hutchings and Wutzdorff, 1988: 7). Alheit stresses that:
"Biography itself has become a field of learning, in which transitions
have to be anticipated and coped with, and where personal identity is liable
to be the result of long and protracted learning processes" (Alheit,
1995: 59).
APEL questions traditional assumptions and attitudes about knowledge and
academic knowledge in particular in that it is saying that life/work experiences
are a form of knowledge. The work of Freire is influential here. Hence life/work
experiences, as well as subject specific knowledge plays a role in the educational
process. APEL also recognises that adults bring with them to the learning
situation a wide range of skills and knowledge (Knowles, 1990; Brookfield,
1983). This is not always recognised by some universities and some departments.
APEL individualises learning as the learner takes responsibility
for their learning and progression. In this sense the APEL model fits in
with wider social changes brought about by modernity. The move towards individualism
during the 1980s in the UK and the breakdown of the welfare state heightened
the need for self-reliance in all spheres of society, including education.
However, while a learner may present experiences as individual life and
work experiences these are still shaped by processes of class, gender and
race.
APEL is assessing and accrediting personal learning for self development.
Empowerment is a nebulous concept which has different meanings in different
contexts. It is often used ideologically and politically by those on the
left within community and adult education and sociology without, on the
whole, an elaboration of its meaning.
"Empowerment carries with it an agent of empowerment (someone, or something,
doing the empowering), a notion of power as property (to empower implies
to give or to confer power), and a vision or desired end state (some vision
of what it is to be empowered and the possibility of a state of empowerment)"
(Gore 1993: 73- 74).
In relation to adult education Antikainen et al (1996) draw upon Mezirow’s
(1981) concept of 'critical reflectivity' for their definition as empowerment
refers "to an experience that changes an individual’s understanding
of him/herself and/or of the world" (Antikainen et al, 1996: 70 -71).
In the context of APEL Evans stresses the following definition:
"Empowerment, however, implies development, or at least the opportunity
for development, so the learning which is experiential, being personal,
is rooted in the idea of human growth and development, hence the interest
in the connections between personal learning and public recognition in relation
to empowerment" (Evans, 1992: 85).
Through empowerment individuals/groups acquire power to act upon and change
their lives by viewing their lives, experiences and learning from a critical
perspective. APEL provides a forum for learners to critically reflect upon
their life/work experiences. APEL also bridges the divide between formal
and informal learning. In doing so it also presents a contradiction. By
accrediting informal learning APEL is quantifying something which is qualitative
and non-formal.
APEL requires institutions to reassess their learning
and assessment strategies. Knowledge is derived from the learner, not the
teacher. The teacher, therefore, has to learn a new role; one which guides
and facilitates the learner to learn. It is a more humanistic way of teaching
and learning as it requires an interactive two-way process.
Institutions also have to be more flexible in their structure and curriculum.
It is, however, costly in terms of time and resources. Most further and
higher education institutions in the UK do not charge students undergoing
the APEL process although it does necessitate one-to-one tuition.
In the UK structures, systems and good practice of APEL have been established in further and higher education. APEL is a valuable tool in helping to provide educational opportunities for adults who do not possess other appropriate academic qualifications. While APEL has taken off in a big way in further education colleges and the ‘new’ universities there are optimistic signs that the ‘old’ universities are increasingly moving towards adopting APEL procedures. In doing so institutions are having to critically reflect upon their learning and assessment procedures. Across Europe interest in APEL is now being generated in those countries, for example Spain, where it has been virtually non-existent. Cultural differences means that APEL models will vary between countries. However, what APEL does share in common is the commitment by those involved to widen access and provide greater flexibility to learning for those groups who have previously not participated in education. It is important to keep the momentum going through sharing of good practice and networking both nationally and at a European level.
References
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Alheit, P (1995) Biographical Learning: Theoretical outline, challenges and contradictions of a new approach in adult education in Alheit, P, Hron, A, Brugger, E and Dominice, P, The Biographical Approach in European Adult Education Wien, Verband Wiener Volksbildung.
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Brookfield, S (1983) Adult Learners, Adult Education and the Community, Milton Keynes, Open University Press
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