Skills recognition and validation – complexity and tensions

Abstract

This article seeks to identify and examine the reasons for the complexity
 and tensions underlying the skills recognition, accreditation and
 certification scheme (SRAC) that has been in place in Portugal since 2001.
 Empirical data were collected through semi-directive interviews with staff
 in three Centros Novas Oportunidades [CNOs] [New Opportunity Centres]
 (organisations delivering the SRAC process), and biographical interviews
 with adults who have completed the scheme. The complex nature of the
 assumptions associated with skills recognition and accreditation practices
 and the tensions raised by their underlying paradox are important factors.
 It is the particular features of the aspects that SRAC practices analyse and
 assess, i.e. prior experiential learning, that generate this complex nature.
 These practices are marked by a paradox that arises because these
 processes, initially based on a humanist approach, are currently linked to
 a very different ideology. This complexity and these tensions are reflected
 in the way skills recognition and accreditation schemes are organised and
 function, and are evident in the comments of staff in the CNOs studied,
 who play a key role in managing such complexities and tensions.

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion