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Research
Domain: Group Two - Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition
(PLAR)
Title
of Project: An Exploration of the Current and Future Uses
of PLAR
Start
Date: April 1, 1997
Academic Investigators: Dr. Alan Thomas (OISE/UT), Monica
Collins (University of Windsor)
Community Partners: ACTEW, CAW, CEP, CSTEC, CUPE, GM, OFL
Student Researchers: Sue Vanstone (OISE/UT), Luis Barnola
(OISE/UT)
Despite
the thirty years of experience with PLAR in the world, there
is very little documentation with respect to the experience of
users. For example there are surprisingly few longitudinal
studies that tell us anything about educational and/or
employment achievements of individuals that have made use of
PLAR procedures and devices. The latter is only information
that, in the long run, will make PLAR both acceptable,
efficient, and humane.
A
recent pilot-project by CSTEC involving employees of
Sidbec-Dosco Ispat Inc., and the Sorel-Tracy CGEP provide
extremely interesting insights into the experience and
recommendations of a group of steelworkers. Ms Joy Van Kleef,
formerly of the Council of Regents is undertaking a
documentation study of the use of PLAR in association with
several colleges in Canada. Secondary Schools in Ontario are
beginning to collect information that would allow the tracking
of PLAR participants. But there remains no consistent,
systematic, collection of information that would allow
inclusive analysis. We do know, for example, how information
about the availability of PLAR is communicated; what the
socio-economic background of successful applicants is; what
experience they have with the PLAR procedures and to what
degree they need to be simplified; what the experience is of
administrators of PLAR at all levels of education; or what the
experience is of "sponsoring" organizations, such as
labour organizations, employers, and schools and colleges.
There
is some reasonable suspicion that the general patterns
associated with users of resources for adult education (those
with higher achievement in formal education use it most, as
has been the case predominantly with Paid Educational Leave).
However the leadership
provided
by the First Nations Technical Institute (Deseronto, Ontario)
suggests at least optimism that PLAR will benefit hitherto
"excluded" groups, as is intended.
What
we have largely are the fruits of enthusiasm and hope, based
on constantly increasing experience, in Canada, and elsewhere
in the world (USA, UK, France, Australia, South Africa)but
very little concrete information on which to solidly base
those expectations.
Because
of the variety of interests, individual and collective,
involved, questions of methodology present special problems.
Ideally we should conduct longitudinal studies involving
various matched groups of applicants, at every level of
education, over a five to seven year period. Such a study
exceeds any of the resources of the NALL Project, but
considerable progress could be made by the following:
-
designing
demonstration projects that would test experience with
respect to information, access, experience with the
procedures on the part of both applicants and providers.
An extension or repetition of the CSTEC pilot would be
particularly useful.
-
identifying
what information we will need to track applicants who
discover PLAR on their own with respect to their
backgrounds, how they found out about it, their experience
with the procedures, and their resulting educational and
occupational lives, and how to establish cooperative
procedures for collecting and sharing such information.
-
exploring
what factors in the PLAR procedures at present are the
most helpful and the most difficult for both applicants
and providers.
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