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Qualifications frameworks and credit systems: a toolkit for education in Europe Torsten Dunkel, Isabelle Le Mouillour 189 cumulation and transfer of credit for learning outcomes in VET’ (European Commission, 2006d, p. 11). Each programme has its own specific objectives in addition to the above educational goals: ECTS in relation to students: ‘ECTS makes study programmes easy to read and compare for all students, local and foreign’; and in relation to universities: ‘ECTS helps universities to organise and revise their study programmes’ (European Commission, 2004, p. 1); ECVET in relation to learners: ‘(…) a way of enabling people to pursue their learning pathway by building on their learning outcomes when moving from one learning context to another, in particular in the framework of mobility. (...) to improve access to qualifications for all, throughout their lives’ (European Commission, 2006b, p. 8); and in relation to the bodies responsible for national VET systems: ‘proposes a common approach to describing qualifications in order to make them easier to understand from one system to another, and to describing the procedures for validating learning outcomes’ (European Commission, 2006b, p. 8). ECTS and ECVET can therefore be distinguished in two areas: the target groups (students vs. learners) and the role of credits. Students constitute a specific group of learners, who are attending university in a particular phase of their learning trajectory and receive credits in the context of ECTS. In the case of ECVET, the learner is in a vocational training phase. ECTS credits are regarded as a tool for managing study programmes (for both higher education establishments and students). ECTS credits correspond to a certain student workload for a year of full-time study. Both universities and students can allocate their resources accordingly. ECTS credits likewise help universities to organise and revise their curricula. In the case of ECVET, credits serve to make learning outcomes more transparent and transferable, the basic dimension here being the all-round occupational profile of the person concerned. Most VET systems have standard occupational profiles which can be used to define learning outcomes for ECVET (Cedefop; Le Mouillour, 2005). Both credit systems achieve their respective objectives by means of ‘transfer’ and ‘accumulation’. The purpose and ultimate aims of these two functions can be distinguished as follows: in ECTS, credits are transferred in the context of international mobility agreements (cf. European Commission, 2004, p. 2). This means that the learn-
190 European journal of vocational training No 42/43 – 2007/3 2008/1 ing effort expended abroad by the student is transferred and integrated into the study programme at home; in ECVET, the learner must have passed the examination abroad or possess evidence of the additional learning outcomes acquired. The ‘learning outcomes’ acquired by the learner abroad are what is transferred under ECVET. This likewise occurs in the context of international mobility agreements; accumulation is a new and as yet incomplete development in the case of ECTS, which is ‘developing into an accumulation system to be implemented at institutional, regional, national and European level’ (European Commission, 2004, p. 1); accumulation is regarded as an important aspect of ECVET from the outset: learning outcomes are accumulated, and this accumulation takes place with a view to the learner’s acquisition of a particular qualification. That qualification is normally awarded in the learner’s country of origin. According to the ‘Trends V’ report of the European University Association (EUA), 75 % of the 908 universities surveyed, which had implemented ECTS, stated that they used ECTS as a transfer instrument; 66 % used ECTS as an accumulation instrument (Purser, Crosier, 2007b). The change in the function of credit systems from transfer alone to accumulation, or from an inputled approach (in the sense of student workload or learning effort) to an approach driven by learning outcomes, corresponds to the concept of lifelong learning and the new notion of learning and working phases in individual biographies. In this sense there is a need for procedures and rules on the accreditation and validation of learning outcomes between different components of education systems (higher education; initial, further and continuing vocational training) and between different modes of learning. The consideration of learning outcomes in connection with credit systems offers an opportunity to validate learning outcomes acquired formally, non-formally and informally for VET or university study programmes, thereby facilitating permeability and progression between educational systems.
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