Conference Agenda

In recent decades, the Irish education system has undergone a transformative shift with the emergence of progression pathways from Further Education and Training (FET) to Higher Education (HE). Echoing the conference theme, ‘Education in an Age of Uncertainty: Memory and Hope for the Future’ and fuelled by historical developments in European lifelong learning policy, the permeability between FET and HE plays a crucial role in enhancing accessibility within the tertiary Irish education sector (O’Sullivan, 2021). Additionally, permeable education systems not only facilitate lifelong learning but also heighten the appeal of Vocational Education and Training (VET) programmes (CEDEFOP, 2012). From a European perspective, the intertwining of pathways between VET and HE has been a focal point in policy and legislative development, particularly in countries with well-established VET systems like Germany, France, and Denmark (CEDEFOP, 2019).

This paper delves into the evolution of vertical permeability from FET Post Leaving Certificate (PLC) provision to Higher Education undergraduate programmes within the Irish education system. The research explores the impact of increased permeability on the learner experience in the Irish tertiary sector. Additionally, it provides a comparative lens on European trends in VET to Higher Education progression, with specific attention to systems in Sweden and Germany.

At the core of facilitating permeable education systems lies the development of the European and National Frameworks of Qualifications (O’Sullivan, 2021; QQI, 2020). Over the past two decades, the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and the Irish National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ) have offered a structured approach to comparing different learning levels across national and European systems (EC, 2018). This research's parameters explore developments in vertical pathways between NFQ levels 5, 6, and 8 (EQF 4,5 & 6).

In Ireland, not all Higher Education programmes provide entry routes for learners with a Post Leaving Certificate qualification (O’Sullivan, 2021). Historically, FET to HE access relied mainly on local agreements and individual course-by-course arrangements (Rami et al., 2016) between FET Programme providers and HE Institutions. Recent advancements, however, have witnessed Higher

Education institutions, including Dublin City University, embracing non-program-specific PLC qualifications at (Irish) NFQ levels 5 and 6 (EQF 4 & 5) as the basis for entry into a significant number of undergraduate degree programmes. Legislative changes in Sweden and Germany have significantly increased vertical permeability pathways between VET and Higher Education, allowing learners from both countries to access higher education programmes with post-secondary VET qualifications (CEDEFOP, 2022; CEDEFOP, 2017).

For some years now, there have been calls for enlarging the domain of apprenticeships, a device which has been historically aimed at supporting the school-to-work transition of young people, in the direction of raising the age limits for access and include as beneficiaries the entire adult population in working age (Cedefop, 2018). Among the most recent steps, the Council Recommendation of 15 March 2018 on a European framework for effective and quality apprenticeships highlights that they may facilitate adults' professional development and transition to a (new) job and the Recommendation on Quality Apprenticeships, recently approved by the ILO, underlines the importance of promoting skills development opportunities addressed to adults to respond to needs that may arise in relation to the search for a new job and/or the willingness to improve their knowledge and skillset.

So far, Italy has taken timid steps in the direction of promoting an expansion of apprenticeships to adults by extending its well-known and most used form of apprenticeship - the so-called “professionalizing” one - to people who have lost their jobs; however, this enlargement has not yet found fertile ground for development and adequate numbers of beneficiaries. Hence, a research question has been formulated on which elements can promote the success of an apprenticeship towards the adult population, which may be also attractive to businesses.

With the aim of understanding which elements can be identified as "enabling factors" that support the growth of an apprenticeship scheme for adults, a comparative study was launched in 2023 for analyzing different schemes of European countries’ dual systems allowing access to adults. Building on the study carried out by the ILO (2022), which clustered all countries (in Europe and beyond) where apprenticeship schemes open to the participation of adults are in place into three groups, by differentiating them on the share of the over-25 participants, those to be involved in the comparative analysis have been chosen, picking at least one from each sub-group. Hence, the following countries have been selected for the study: Switzerland, Denmark, England, Finland. In all these countries, apprenticeships allow free access from adults, whether unemployed or employed, regardless of their educational level or already acquired qualifications. And in all these countries the share of adults has been growing in recent years compared to the total number of apprentices.

The study takes the start by examining how the different countries have realized the enlargement of beneficiaries of apprenticeships to adults, investigating the regulations, measures and initiatives that support this extension, and then examining the results in terms of participation. The in-depth analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of these schemes, as emerges from the output of the monitoring and evaluation activities carried out at national level, in addition to what is discussed in the relevant scientific literature, allows us to draw useful elements for identifying those that can be defined as the "enabling factors" for promoting the participation of adults to apprenticeships. The study is still ongoing, until the end of the year, and we are pleased to share and discuss the results achieved so far.

Orienting vocational education and training (VET) towards lifelong learning and developing procedures for recognising already-acquired skills and competencies (so-called learning outcomes) in formal VET programmes are important objectives of the confederation and the cantons in Switzerland. In line with the Memorandum on Lifelong Learning (Cedefop, EU Commission 2002), non-formally and informally acquired competencies, such as further training and work experience, should also be given greater consideration. Recognition of prior learning (RPL) should facilitate social and economic integration and enable individuals to get higher qualifications. At the same time, RPL should improve the education system and thus alleviate the shortage of skilled workers. It is generally assumed that recognising competencies should be easier to achieve in VET, with its practice-oriented training system, than in the general (higher) education sector. In Switzerland, RPL practices have so far only been established, documented, and researched in basic VET at the upper secondary level (Maurer 2019, SERI, 2018). At the level of higher professional education and training, which is aimed at people who already have professional experience, and in particular at Professional Education Institutions (PEI), the educational organisations have a great deal of room for manoeuvre, with little transparency regarding RPL practices. This article builds on the results of a national study commissioned by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI, which found that already-acquired learning outcomes are not recognised in around half of the PEI programmes examined (Salzmann et al. 2022). This can be partly explained by the personal pedagogical convictions of so-called gatekeepers, who make RPL decisions and in the underlying didactic concepts of the programmes (Baumeler et al. 2023). This article sheds light on possible explanations at the level of educational organisations, which are not the responsibility of individual actors but have to do with the self-image of the organisations and their willingness to use existing leeway defined by external framework conditions. The study aims to understand better the different RPL practices and justifications of PEIs from the perspective of the organisations to better promote RPL in higher professional education and training. We ask how external framework conditions, such as national minimum requirements, framework curricula and regulations on accessing the occupations, hinder or promote RPL and how much leeway there is for PEIs within an occupational field to recognise students’ learning outcomes. We use a model based on the findings of Damm (2018). With the motif of “boundary work,” he analysed who (potential students) and what (learning outcomes) are allowed through the boundary and which lines of reasoning guide the actions. We analyse four cases of PEI programmes that contrast as much as possible in their framework conditions and RPL practices and show the lines of reasoning from the PEI perspective. We assumed that PEIs recognise learning outcomes only strictly when there is little room for manoeuvre and more generous when there is much leeway. However, there are also counterintuitive cases that deviate from this scheme. These PEIs do not recognise learning outcomes, even though there is room for manoeuvre. Other PEIs recognise learning outcomes, although the possibilities are limited by the framework conditions. This raises the follow-up question of what motivates PEIs to deviate from the scheme, i.e., not to utilise the scope or to maximise it.