Student-Centred Learning - Education International

One major danger posed particularly by policy-makers who make an erroneous associationwith quality assurance, is in the form of rankings, typologies and league tables.While these have been dismissed by many stakeholders of the academic community,their influence still looms large in higher education policies, leading to a re-orientationof internal institutional policies aimed at fulfilling the criteria that is set out bythe rankings.Criteria for ranking institutions most often involve an exclusive focus on research andtechnical aspects that are distinct from core educational activities. Since teaching andlearning do not provide strictly measurable parameters, it is often the case that theyare sidelined or represented through criteria which are not fully relevant. This has thepotential to cause much damage should these rankings increase their clout over qualityassurance as the process by which institutions evaluate their results and set theirgoals.9.6Recognition of Prior LearningOne of the first premises that needs to be overcome in order to apply scl adequately isthat by which higher education institutions claim a monopoly on learning. Learning,in terms of knowledge gained at the individual level, takes place in far more numeroussettings than in the classroom, but is often only recognised when it happens inacademic settings.Recognition of Prior Learning (rpl) is fairly widespread for employment or educationalaccess purposes but is rarely used to feed learning outcomes into the coherentset of qualifications that a student gains as a result of the learning process. Thatis, if learning outcomes X, Y and Z lead to competence W, most students in Europeneed to attain all 3 outcomes in their institution, rather than contribute by learningoutcome Z from external experiences. It is noteworthy that rpl is not intrinsicallyWhat is the Value that RPL brings toSCL?It can help students complementlearning in the academic setting withinformal learning that takes place inreal-life situations, giving the learnermore control over the way certainlearning outcomes are attained;It facilitates successful completion ofhigher education for students with ageneral background, such as those whostart working upon finishing secondaryeducation; and used in conjunctionwith ETCS and qualification frameworks,it can become a vital tool insupporting self-directed learning.70Student centered learningtime for a paradigm change