The Portuguese case of RPL new practices and new adult educators: some tensions and ambivalences in the framework of new public policies

Abstract

This article reports the main contributions of an original empirical research project whose primary objective was to understand some of the complexities of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) practices in general and those referring to the Portuguese RPL case in particular. The main purpose of this study was to reflect critically upon the contemporary RPL practices and policies. Of particular relevance was the discussion of some aspects of (i) the form and mission of RPL as well as some aspects of (ii) the role and profile of RPL adult educators. These concerns were taken within the framework of a new adult education and training (AET) strategy and the ‘new educational order’, originating in late modernity. The four models used to capture ways of seeing RPL practices, proposed by Judy Harris, were theoretically revisited (as heuristic devices). However, this was assumed only as one possible route to better problematise the empirical findings. The results allow us to establish, for instance, that the need for outcomes with regards to the number of adults certified became progressively more important in the Portuguese case; that these practices tended to view learning as a cognitive process instead of a reality embedded in social practice; that this RPL was more about individual advancement than about collective advancement; or even that this RPL structure can be seen as a strategic device whose social purpose was more about constructing a new invisible form of exclusion than an innovative way of inclusion.

Notes

1. We include in the concept of tension some of the main contradictory issues currently under debate in the field of political sociology that have significance for understanding the field of adult education, in particular the ideological way of understanding the power relations and role of the state, the market and society. In other words, the main tension referred is between the mandate for AE in the welfare state and in the neoliberal state (the tension between capital and workers’ interests in the field of AE are also considered in this concept). By using the concept of ambivalence we have tried to catch the conceptual and paradigmatic shift that sometimes leaves unclear the public discourses about AE (Barros, 2012b).

2. The researcher was not employed in the organisation. This meant an authorisation from the NGO’s Board was necessary to conduct the study. We made a number of choices in what concerns participant observation; for example, we chose open participant observation in contexts with adult educators and semi-open participant observation in contexts with adult learners. In this last one, the researcher assumed a role of a probationer on RPL practices. Located outside of the responsibility of conducting adults’ specific RPL processes but close enough, i.e. always present, we were able to deeply assess data about the adults’ perspectives on these RPL practices and policies.

3. During one year of fieldwork we conducted 36 open interviews with adult educators and 33 open interviews with adult learners.

4. The author and researcher is an anthropologist with personal experience in the potential of critical ethnographical research.

5. According to Maroy’s reasoning (1997, p. 136), the work achieved in this first stage was a ‘seesaw’, including classification, concrete manipulation and analytical separation of data in order to interpret and give meaning to information collected. The purpose was to have a specific and clear line for discussion. The idea was to build categories and develop an analysis structure that would be used later on. This effort would lead to the development of a first series of discussion proposals to be validated afterwards.

6. Cf. Database SIGO in: www.anqep.gov.pt

7. ´Technical team’ is the official public name given to the adult educators working in the new RPL centres created in Portugal.

8. The Portuguese RPL process is divided into the following main stages: first stage, registration; second stage, individual biographical interview; third stage, exploration of experiential learning acquired (using a biographical approach and a balance of competences methodology) and training diagnosis (to overcome competence deficits); fourth stage, construction of the personal dossier/portfolio; fifth stage, validation jury and certification of competences.

9. The Portuguese National Qualification Framework (called National Referential of Key-competences) is related to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), Europass, the European Credit System for VET (ECVET), and the European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for VET (EQAVET). Since the Lisbon Agenda (2001) the political decision to make national goals efficiently converge to supranational ones has been clear, especially: first, to those of the Education and Training 2010 Program; and now, to those of the Communication ‘A new impetus for European cooperation in Vocational Education and Training to support the Europe 2020 strategy’.

10. During our fieldwork the Acções S@ber + (Action Courses Knowing plus) were available in the four core national key-competence framework areas: life mathematics; employability and citizenship; information and communication technologies; and language and communication.

11. For example: EURES, ENIC-NARIC, Ploteus, Euro guidance, EURAXESS, and several EU programmes for education and training.