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Using the BOLD Postgraduate Diploma to pilot the implementation of micro-credentialing for enhancing lifelong learning: A means of advancing social justice in South Africa

         Tabisa Mayisela (tabisa.mayisela@uct.ac.za)

OEGlobal Conference 13-15 November 2024

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Agenda

  • Lifelong learning
  • Social justice agenda in South Africa
  • Micro-credentials
    • Conceptualisation
    • Higher education focus
  • Recognition of prior learning conceptualisation
  • Blended and Online Learning Design (BOLD) PGDip

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  • Lifelong learning (and lifewide learning) – “equipping people with the skills, knowledge and attitudes to thrive amid the changing patterns of life and work as the (digital) economy unfolds” (Oliver, 2019, p.1)

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  • Emphasises individual interest and agency (Akther, 2020)

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  • Non-traditional learners or mature-age students

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  • Micro-credentials as a means of enhancing lifelong learning

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Introduction: Lifelong learning

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SA White Paper on Education and Training (1995)�

  • General Education, Further Education, and Higher Education as components of lifelong learning

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  • The system must increasingly open access to education and training opportunity of good quality, to all children, youth and adults, and provide the means for learners to move easily from one learning context to another, so that the possibilities for lifelong learning are enhanced.

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  • It must provide an increasing range of learning possibilities, offering learners greater flexibility in choosing what, where, when, how and at what pace they learn.

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HEIs (Universities of technology and Universities)

Basic Education GET Grade 9

Community Education and Training (prev Adult Basic Education and training)

TVETs (N1/NCV2)

Gr. 10

Gr. 11

Gr. 12

Higher Certificate

Higher Occupational Certificate

Elementary Certificate

Elementary Occupational Certificate

Intermediate Certificate

Intermediate Occupational Certificate

General Certificate

General Occupational Certificate

National Certificate

National Occupational Certificate

Bachelor’s degree

Advanced Diploma

Advanced Occupational Diploma

Advanced Certificate

Diploma

Occupational Diploma

Bachelor Honours Degree

Postgraduate Diploma

Bachelor’s degree

Specialised Occupational Diploma

Doctoral degree

Doctoral Degree (Professional)

Masters degree

Masters Degree (Professional)

Skills development providers

Image created 10/2021

[COOL Project]

TVETs (N2/NCV3)

TVETs (N3/NCV4)

TVETs (N4-6)

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South African HE context: Social justice agenda

  • Widening participation agenda to:
    • Redress past inequalities and strive for social justice
    • Increase social mobility and build economic prosperity

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  • Through increasing access (e.g., RPL & extended degrees programmes)

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  • Both physical and epistemological access are needed for success

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    • Through flexibility of provision (micro-credentials, mode, part-time studies, etc.)

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Micro-credentials (for flexibility)

  • Form of credential (incl. badges, certificates, endorsements) for the recognition of “modules of learning much smaller than those covered in conventional academic awards, which often allow learners to complete the requisite work over a shorter period” (UNESCO, 2018, p.9).
    • … i.e., in recognition of microlearning - a ‘bite size’ unit of learning that can be completed within, as little as, 20mins (Zhang & West, 2019).

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  • Microlearning is conceptualised as “a form of competency-based education” that puts emphasis on ‘personalised learning’ and ‘just-in time learning’ of ‘specific skill sets’  (Zhang & West, 2019, p. 313)
    • Often industry aligned and focused on graduate attributes, employability skills and 21st century skills (Wheelahan & Moodie, 2021) – “Horizontal discourse”

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Making Sense of Micro-credentials

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“A micro-credential is a representation of learning, awarded for completion of a short program that is focused on a discrete set of competencies (i.e., skills, knowledge, attributes), and is sometimes related to other credentials.” (HEQCO, 2021, p.6)

Image: HEQCO, 2021

Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) report

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Micro-credentials: opportunities and challenges

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  • lack of common framework to ensure consistency and portability
  • contributes to commodification of education
  • narrowly defined purpose of education in terms of generic skills and competencies (focus on horizontal rather than vertical discourse)

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  • pre-cursor course for students looking to enter a diploma or a degree (foundation course)
  • stacking of own micro-credentials to make up a macro-credential or qualification (Varadarajan, Koh & Daniel, 2023)
  • flexible, affordable, responsive to changing labour market needs

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Horizontal discourse vs Vertical discourse

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Contextual, tied to the everyday, local practice

Typically informal

Horizontal discourse

Abstract, theoretical, disciplinary

Takes one beyond immediate experience

Formal educational context

Vertical discourse

This kind of discourse allows students to participate in society’s conversations, to engage in political, moral, and other debates, to interrogate and evaluate knowledge claims, and to play a part in shaping how knowledge develops in future (Wheelahan, 2010; Ashwin, 2022; Morrow, 2009; Young, 2013).

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Arguing for a knowledge focus

  • Higher education institutions as providers of lifelong education (Akther, 2020)
  • Move focus to knowledge – powerful disciplinary knowledge
    • How students are supported in their immersion into disciplinary communities is critical - making them legitimate knowers within a discipline
    • Educators are responsible for helping to shape their students’ disciplinary identities (Bernstein, 1971)
    • There is a performative aspect of disciplinary identity and becoming a legitimate disciplinary knower - requires both ‘doing’ and ‘being’ (McLean, Abbas & Ashwin, 2017; Morrow, 2009).

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What does this mean for micro-credentials in the HE landscape?

Oliver, 2019, p. 17

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Micro-credentials:

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'Credit value' and micro-credentials

  • Micro-credential - "a certification of assessed learning that is additional, alternate, complementary to or a component part of a formal qualification” or loosely “a certification of assessed learning that is less than a formal qualification” (Oliver, 2019, p.10).
  • Credit-bearing micro-credentials include assessment aligned to a formal qualification level. Achievement of the learning outcomes leads to an offer of admission to or credit towards at least one formal qualification, regardless of whether or not the offer is taken up by the learner. Credit-bearing micro-credentials mirror and contribute to the academic standards required in the target qualification(s). The duration and effort required by the learner are in keeping with amount of credit earned in the target qualification(s). (Oliver, 2019, p.19)

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Cases in Open Learning (COOL) Research project (2019-2021)

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Cases in Open Learning (COOL) Research project (2019-2021)

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  • Digital badges for professional development (SA)
  • Other participants: Canada, France, New Zealand

Conclusion: There was potential for micro-credentials to be adopted in various ways in HE (Jones, 2022)

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Southern African Context: The Potential of Micro-credentials in Southern Africa (PoMiSA) Project

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Specific objective: To develop micro-credential principles and guidelines for good practice to support the systematic introduction of micro-credentials in national systems in Southern African countries. (Green, 2024)

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South African Example of credit pathway

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credit accumulation and advanced standing, after the person has registered for the degree.  

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UCT Context

Continuing Education (CE)​

  • Definition: A recognition of specific knowledge, skills, and competencies that doesn’t require completing a full qualification.

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  • Micro-credentials involve a small volume of certified competencies aligned to a formal qualification…, which are assessed and awarded through a certified short course or recognition of prior learning.  

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  • Achievement of the learning outcomes can lead to an offer of credit towards a designated component of a formal qualification.​

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  • Certified short courses can enable recognition for prior learning (RPL), potentially supporting access, credit exemption or advanced standing in formal qualifications.

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RPL as specialised pedagogy

  • An assessment process (through a portfolio) in which formal academic recognition or credit is given to students’ prior informal and non-formal learning, often gained through experience (Snyman & van den Berg, 2022).

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  • Cooper et al. (2016) position it as a specialised pedagogy
    • engaging with content,
    • fostering academic and digital literacies,
    • completing assessments and receiving feedback,
    • preparation for academic demands, realistic expectations

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BOLD PGDip overview

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Four clusters

  • Cluster 1: Learning design
  • Cluster 2: Socially just learning design
  • Cluster 3: Learning, leading and designing for digital habitats
  • Cluster 4: Portfolio of professional learning and experience

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Learning design as a region​

  • i.e., it looks outward to the field of practice, but which is underpinned by academic, disciplinary knowledge.
  • Epistemological access in this field therefore involves access to both contextual and conceptual knowledge.
  • Bernstein (2000) referred to pure disciplines as ‘singulars’ and applied disciplines as ‘regions’ respectively.
  • While singulars, like physics or chemistry, are strongly bounded and specialised, regions are weakly bounded, integrating academic disciplinary fields with the field of practice, such as engineering or management (Bernstein, 2000).

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BLENDED

AND ONLINE LEARNING DESIGN

Cluster 1:

Learning design

1.3 Learning design models

Cluster 2:

Socially just learning design

2.1: Designing for care and compassion

2.2: Students as partners and co-creators

2.3: Socially just learning designers

2.4: Learning analytics

Cluster 3:

Learning, leading and designing for digital habitats

3.1: Platforms and tools

3.2: Designing and assessment

3.3: Producing online content

3.4: Facilitating online

3.5: Designing with AI

Cluster 4:

Portfolio of professional learning and experience

4.1: Design learning intervention (using Design-based Research approach)

4.2: Evaluation and quality assurance

4.3: Becoming a critically reflective learning design practitioner

10 credits each​; take 3 per cluster

1..4: Project management

1.1: Introduction to learning design

1.2: Design thinking process

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BOLD Teaching and Learning Principles

  • Radical flexibility
  • Professionalisation
  • Social and active learning
  • Human-centred pedagogies
  • Openness

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Radical flexibility – Credit pathway (ideal)

  • Short courses = degree courses
  • Short courses can be taken with less time constraints – register outside the university admission time
  • Short courses provide a ‘try before you buy’ (Oliver, 2019) function
  • Short courses (micro-credentials) can be stacked – up to 50% (i.e., 60 credits accumulated towards PGDip … Students be exempted (Credit accumulation and Advanced standing)
  • Have both theoretical and practice-oriented approaches - Some of the courses will require students to complete ‘practitioner’ assignments, while other will be ‘scholarly’
  • If an applicant does not meet the entry requirements, they can undertake the RPL course (subsequent to Faculty of Humanities pre-screening)

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Example: Designing with AI short course

Credentialing:

  • Digital badge for participation in the course and BOLD community
  • Two certificate options
    • Certificate of attendance (80%),
    • Certificate of achievement (80% plus assignments)

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The BOLD RPL Course

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Admission: RPL

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Preparation: specialised pedagogy

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Credit pathway: advanced standing

2.3 Socially just Learning Designers: Personal and professional development (PPD) course for (aspiring) learning designers

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The BOLD RPL course

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  • LO1: Describe and analyse their LD practice and how their identity and agency is entangled with their LD practice.
  • LO2: Explain how positionality and identity impact on leading self and teams
  • LO3: Reflect on agency and voice in their own spheres of influence and identify strategies to enabling change
  • LO4: Understand and select models and theoretical frameworks that help participants to articulate and critically reflect on change and power across different contexts
  • L 5: Construct their own development journey through learning design spaces/careers
  • LO6: Articulate understanding of the world of LD and their particular place/role in it

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Personas:

PGDIP participants

RPL participants - possible PGDIP participants

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6-week course – orientation week, four course weeks, assessment week

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100 hours – Weekly online live meeting, coaching session

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2 x Individual reflections

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Weekly activities  (individual/groupwork)

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PPD plan

Competency analysis

Professional goals

Identify learning opportunities and articulate plan

Resources and support (mobilisation plan)

Implementation and evaluation of milestones 

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Discussion, Conclusion & Recommendations

  • Rethinking the (intentional) design of a non-formal learning offering (e.g., short course) that could be used as a credit pathway

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  • Conceptualising RPL as "specialised pedagogy" to enhance epistemological access

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  • Micro-credentials (in HE) moving from a skills focus towards 'powerful disciplinary knowledge' to better enhance portability – credit pathway

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  • Transformative NQF & HE systems

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References

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Acknowledgements 

  • Academic staff development colleagues; other CILT colleagues involved in various roles (BOLD & micro-credentials conversations)

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  • UCT Formal Online Education (UFO) Project funding managed by the CILT Director

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  • Mrs Amanda Barratt, Deputy Director: UCT Institutional Planning Department (IPD) and Head, Institutional Academic Planning and Quality Assurance (APQA)

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Thank you

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