Read on and you will learn:

• What are microcredentials and and how can they be obtained?
• How are microcredentials linked with the trend of modularizing skills?
• What are the benefits of obtaining microcredentials?

Microcredentials – what are they and what are their types?

What we learn every day at home, at school or at work, consciously or unconsciously, can be combined into larger skill sets, equipping us with specific competencies. They can prove to be our asset in the job market. But how can such a skill be presented, how can it be made credible?

Each skill can be expressed through microcredentials, that is, smaller or larger achievements confirmed by a credible institution or university. They can be accumulated into larger credentials or form part of our portfolio.

– explains Urszula Buchowicz, microcredentials expert in the project “Microcredentials – piloting a new solution to support lifelong learning”.

But also important is the fact that learning outcomes can be presented in digital form, such as in the Odznaka+ application, which was created at the Educational Research Institute and is currently being developed.

Digital badges are usually associated with non-formal education (e.g., participation in educational projects), informal learning (e.g., at home or in the workplace), and achievements in lifelong learning, especially those relating to professional development. Such badges most often accompany the acquisition of skills in online form. Their special feature is the ability to share them, such as on social media. In this way, they perform the important function of digitally visualizing a person’s achievements.

Microcredentials and the modularization of skills

Through microcredentials, we can accumulate skills acquired in different learning contexts in stages, not only through formal education, but also through non-formal education and informal learning.

The modularization of educational activities and programmes, combined with microcredentials, makes it easier to build our own learning and professional development pathways. According to a Cedefop report, microcredentials can complement formal education and training systems, which are sometimes considered too slow in responding to the rapid changes in the labour market.

Microcredentials – what can you gain from them?

Planning a career path requires reflection about one’s own learning process: how do I learn, why do I learn, and what do I learn? In which direction would I like/want to develop further?  How does what I do in my personal life (my interests) affect my functioning in the work environment?

If we look at our accomplishments as a range of experiences throughout our lives, we can see what makes us unique and special in a world where very many people have identical school certificates or college diplomas, but they don’t show the individual qualities and advantages of each job candidate. Microcredentials go beyond this, they show individual achievements that can be combined into our own constellations of skills.

– says Ursula Buchowicz.

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Read on and you will learn:

• What are the findings in the OPI report “Microcredential as a new direction for higher education”?
• What are the benefits of implementing microcredentials to higher education institutions?
• How can microcredentials benefit students and graduates?
• What challenges will higher education face in implementing microcredentials?

The OPI report, released in March 2024, presents findings on the attitudes in higher education towards microcredentials. This is an important study that fills a gap in the state of research on this issue in Poland. One of the few studies addressing the issue is the 2022 IBE report.

Admittedly, it is not possible to talk about microcredentials in general based on OPI’s study, but rather about the attitudes towards them in higher education. This is because the idea of microcredentials is something new, many people have not yet encountered it. Given such a situation, a representative quantitative survey on this issue would probably not pass the test of research reliability.

Instead, we have an interesting exploration of the topic in a specific institutional area. Higher education, next to the ICT industry that is mainly targeted by our project, will be an area where digital credentials for ‘smaller units of learning’ are likely to become popular quickly.

– comments Dr. Ziemowit Socha, a researcher and expert on microcredentials at the Educational Research Institute (IBE).

Microcredentials – benefits for higher education institutions

One of the key findings of the report is that the state of knowledge about microcredentials among higher education representatives varies. This means that some people encountered the term for the first time by participating in the OPI survey. As mentioned above, microcredentials are a new concept in Poland. However, knowledge about them is likely to become more widespread as member countries implement them following the recommendation of the Council of the European Union. Moreover, as further conclusions of the report show, microcredentials seem to be an answer to the many needs of both students and universities themselves.

IBE has been operating a pilot microcredentials project since October 2023. In a way, it is a research project, but in it we are not surveying the opinions of respondents, but checking the actual readiness of various entities to develop their individual microcredentials or larger sets of them. We are also working on disseminating basic information about microcredentials, and the report can confirm our simple intuition that promoting knowledge about this solution is particularly needed in higher education.

– says Ziemowit Socha.

Students and graduates see microcredentials as an opportunity for simpler confirmation of the knowledge they have acquired, in addition to being described as “concrete” and “closer to their interests.” Many pointed to the reputation and quality of microcredentials, which can help them strengthen their position in the job market.

As recipients of microcredentials, students and graduates point to the electronic format as the preferred form for issuing microcredentials. This is an important signal for us as developers of the Odznaka+ application, which will be used to issue and collect badges and microcredentials in digital form.

– adds Ziemowit Socha.

Higher education staff pointed out that the implementation of a microcredential system can help the institution in building its image as modern and student-friendly. This helps with promotion and can support in overcoming, among other things, the effects of the demographic decline, which is taking its toll on universities.

Higher education representatives who participated in the survey declared that they expect support with the implementation of microcredentials. IBE is responding to these needs. Our project is currently being piloted, but in subsequent stages or projects, we will use the experience gained to help higher education and other institutions with issuing microcredentials.

– reports Ziemowit Socha.

Microcredentials in higher education – challenges

Survey participants shared their concerns about integrating microcredentials into university operations. These include:

• the lack of a well-defined legal and organisational framework for implementing microcredentials,
• the lack of knowledge about what microcredentials are and how to implement them,
• uncertainty about the quality of individual courses for which microcredentials are issued.

One of the main goals of our project is to develop Polish quality standards for issuing microcredentials. We are also working on a legal and organisational frame of reference so that any institution wishing to issue microcredentials in the future will meet certain quality requirements. Without these standards, of course, we can still talk about ‘open badges’, but the time of microcredentials is still ahead of us. Fortunately, we have clarified the general definition from the EU Council Recommendation and are defining, in cooperation with partners, what is essential in order to reliably and, most importantly, effectively confirm the skills needed in the labour market.

– replies Ziemowit Socha.

The post Microcredentials at Polish universities – are we ready for this? appeared first on Microcredentials.

Read on and you will learn:

• How can microcredentials address the needs of learners and today’s labour market?
• What are the benefits of using microcredentials in education and training?
• What are the challenges of incorporating microcredentials into the changing field of education?

During the webinar, OECD expert Shizuka Kato pointed out why microcredentials can address the needs of learners and today’s labour market. They validate smaller and more flexible education and training programmes. In addition, they are distinguished by:

• being more labour market oriented,
• allowing for flexible skill bundling and the design of individual development paths,
• being accessible more often via the Internet,
• being able to link the education sector with the labour market in a simpler way.

OECD has been taking a close look at the use and effects of implementing microcredentials in education and training in recent years. The organisation’s reports point to the potential benefits of doing so, such as:

• providing access to skills development and retraining opportunities,
• increasing employability,
• making education more flexible and individualized,
• increasing learner mobility,
• enabling social inclusion,
• increasing the well-being of citizens.

The research-based analyses show, on the one hand, evidence of the positive effects of implementing microcredentials. On the other hand, they reveal related challenges that need to be addressed within the framework of developed public policies and through the involvement of educational and research institutions as well as employers, among others.

– comments Wojciech Gola, key expert on the design of digital solutions for skills development in the project “Microcredentials – piloting a new solution to support lifelong learning”.

Microcredentials – how do they meet the needs of learners and the labour market?

Data from various countries (OECD, 2023) show that people who earn credentials for participating in short educational programmes have a better chance of obtaining employment in the labour market and can expect to earn higher wages. In doing so, it is worth noting that, in addition to participation in the programmes themselves, the following are important:

• the quality of the offer (e.g., the volume of the course, trust in the educational institution offering the programme),
• relevance to current labour market needs.

Microcredentials can support learners in starting or returning to college. Participation in short, certified programmes can encourage people to take advantage of the university’s offerings without making a long-term commitment of several years of study.

This allows the learner to gain a recognizable and accepted validation of skills and to verify whether they want to continue to develop in a particular educational field.

– explains Wojciech Gola.

The use of microcredentials can also benefit universities – for example, by attracting students who are also active in the labour market and by establishing cooperation with employers.

Microcredentials can also help make access to training more equitable. According to OECD research, some people interested in becoming active in education pointed to barriers such as:

• the lack of time due to workload or family responsibilities,
• the lack of employer support,
• the lack of financial resources,
• the provision of training in remote locations or at inconvenient times.

Meanwhile, the characteristic features of microcredentials are: flexibility, smaller volume and digitality. As such, they can respond to these problems.

Microcredentials – what are the challenges of implementing them?

Although microcredentials are an answer to many of the problems of today’s labour market and learners, there are also several challenges associated with their implementation. One of them is to find solutions through which the use of microcredentials will reduce social inequality.

“Currently, the greatest benefits of having microcredentials are gained by people with higher education, those who are young and active in the labour market, who are more likely to choose self-development in this a way and get better results through microcredentials. Therefore, it is worth promoting this solution to other groups of learners as well, and providing wide access to tools supporting the acquisition of microcredentials,”

– concludes Wojciech Gola.

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