The momentum toward skills-based hiring has started to address the disparities that historically and systemically excluded (HSE) communities face in accessing educational and employment opportunities. Companies have started to value competency over degrees and work experience as indicators for candidate alignment with available opportunities. Competency-based education models allow learners to demonstrate learning beyond the classroom, increasing access to opportunities and socioeconomic advancement.
Our infographic details the multitude of educational and employment options and paths that learners and workers can choose from. Learners and workers can choose a journey that is as straightforward or as complex as routes on a subway map, allowing them to explore and collect valuable, certifiable experiences that enhance their skills in pursuit of larger overall goals.
As learners choose and continue on their educational and career journeys, micro-credentials will effectively showcase the competencies gained across various skills in ways that educational institutions and employers can trust and verify. With the rise of competency-based education, technologies such as learning and employment records (LERs) have been developed to detail lifelong learning and reimagine standard methods for recounting learner experiences, like resumes. LERs can highlight the unique journeys of learners and workers while serving as a practical tool for the seamless flow of data between institutions. This allows learners and workers to attest to their skills when pursuing new opportunities. In this way, individuals maintain control over their representation and professional profiles, deciding how their data is shared for networking and recruiting purposes, helping to mitigate issues of bias.
Gaps in access to competency-based micro-credentials and LERs for HSE communities are a concern among learners and workers who view these digital tools as a way to level the playing field. LERs are uniquely positioned to facilitate equity and access to more opportunities for HSE communities as a verifiable record of personal information, micro-credentials, achievements (e.g., certificates, licenses, diplomas, degrees, etc.), and experiences (e.g., full or part-time or volunteer work, internships, conferences, publications) to tell the story of an individual’s learning journey. Micro-credentials and LERs can adapt to workforce needs, providing an innovative way of highlighting learning and career development.
To learn how to use competency-based micro-credentials and LERs to support learning and employment journeys, view our infographic and read the full report, “The Promise of Micro-credentials and Learning and Employment Record Technologies for Youth and K-12 Schools.”
