Thousands of people may be denied access to retraining opportunities if microcredentials continue to be ignored by the Westminster government’s flagship lifelong learning policy, a former universities minister has warned.
Introducing a new report by the Lifelong Education Commission on the future of bite-sized learning, its chair Chris Skidmore calls on the UK sector to adopt a new framework for the recognition of short courses, partly to ensure that they can be stacked into larger qualifications recognised by employers and universities.
“Microcredentials may be a new frontier in higher learning, but we cannot afford to leave them a ‘Wild West’ zone in the long run,” says Mr Skidmore, who urges the government to include short courses within its plans for a lifelong loan entitlement, which will provide adults with up to four years of post-18 education, either vocational or academic, by 2025.
