Helen Peters, Helen Pokorny and Azar Sheibani

If you ask an adult who he (sic) is, he is likely to identify himself in terms of what his occupation is, where he has worked, where he has travelled, what his training and experience have equipped him to do, and what his achievements have been. An adult is what he has done. (author’s italics) (p. 89).

For an adult to set aside her/his experience on entering university is therefore not only to waste a resource which can benefit both the individual and others around them but also to take away the person’s identity and turn learning into a mechanistic and superficial process which does not engage the student in praxis, defined by Mezirow (cited in Challis 1996 p.35) as ‘..the unity of reflection and action, underpinned by the willingness to alter personal ways of thinking.’ Boud and Walker (1993) likewise stress the relevance of the whole of our experience and the importance of taking it into account in learning.

The developmental model of APEL (as opposed to the credit exchange model exemplified by National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), Butterworth 1992) has as its aim to offer a process by which students with experience can formulate the knowledge and abilities they have acquired through that experience in such a way as to gain recognition and credit for them in educational institutions. It is, therefore, perhaps surprising that APEL has had less success in the higher education (HE) sector than might have been expected, and indeed as Trowler (1996 p. 28) says it ‘...is a very long way from becoming a central part of the route to mass higher education.’ This is at a time when many universities already have a large proportion of students over 25, and can expect to see this proportion increase if the present government achieves its aim of 50% of the population under thirty participating in higher education (John Carvel in The Guardian 8 March 1999). A third of these new recruits are expected to be part-timers, working to pay for their study on what are described as ‘career-friendly modular courses’. APEL would seem to be particularly appropriate for students in this position: working and studying, paying for their own courses and presumably wishing to complete in perhaps a somewhat shorter time than the six years generally spent on a part-time degree.

So why is APEL not thriving and expanding in our universities? Is Hanson (1996) right in suggesting that it is too difficult to reconcile learning from experience and academic study? Is there a reluctance on the part of either students or lecturers to go down this route? Or is it due to structures and systems in operation which are not adaptable to this approach, and a lack of willingness to change them? What might be the consequences of failure to accommodate the experience students bring with them? This paper will try to find answers to these questions by looking at the experience of students and staff in one university, and attempt to envisage a way forward for what Challis (1996: 39) considers ‘...a model of good adult education practice.’

It is something of a paradox that modularisation of the curriculum in universities, whilst designed to create a more flexible approach to study and to make it more accessible at different points to a greater number of people, has in many ways resulted in a system which is more rigid and mechanical and which seems to operate against the development of the individual and the fostering of independent thought. This is because learning outcomes often do not represent a true picture of the range and depth of learning covered in a module. They may be tokenistic or include exaggerated claims of what can be achieved, and also tend to be knowledge based. Trowler (1996) explains how the credit system which started in new universities and is now recognised in 75% of all HE institutions was designed ‘...to facilitate the shift from an ‘elite’ towards a ‘mass’ model of higher education and so both to deepen and broaden access to it.’ (p. 18). However Trowler suggests that universities may be unhappy about losing funding by granting credit, and that questions of the status of credit and the maintenance of quality may also influence the take up of APEL. There have also been suggestions (Barkatoolah, Usher cited in Trowler 1996) that students undertaking APEL could be disadvantaged in various ways. Barkatoolah posits that those assessing and interviewing candidates may be doing so with certain social prototypes in mind or may be influenced by stereotypes of gender and ethnicity and which may adversely affect the outcomes for the candidate. Usher suggests that the process of reflecting on personal experience and re-formulating it in formal academic terms for the purpose of gaining credit may result in feelings of loss of control or alienation from their experience for the student, and be particularly damaging if credit is not awarded to the extent hoped for.

Doubts about credibility of claims and a tendency to preserve the status quo may have resulted in the generally poor allocation of resources to APEL in universities. Research for this paper was carried out in an inner-city, new university with a diverse student body, 75% over 21 and 60% over 25. We talked to the member of staff responsible for APEL in each faculty as well as to other lecturers who, as subject specialists, have dealt with claims from individual students. We also talked to a number of students who had submitted, or are in the process of preparing, claims for APEL in the different faculties, some of whom entered the University through the regular channels and found out about APEL in induction or through publicity, others who entered via the University’s Refugee Advice and Guidance Unit. The latter followed a programme designed to help refugees and asylum seekers with high level qualifications and experience to gain recognition for this and enter further study or employment. The University runs a preliminary level module entitled ‘Making your Experience Count’ which students can opt to take in their first year. As well as looking at learning related issues, this module takes them through the process of constructing a portfolio for the purpose of claiming credit for second and third year modules over and above the 15 points awarded for successful completion.

Interviews with staff, whilst confirming a deep seated commitment to notions of equality of opportunity and to the education of mature students, also revealed several real or perceived barriers to recognition of the experience students bring to their studies. These include practical factors such as time and student numbers, as well as attitudes held or perceived to be held by colleagues concerning the value of experiential learning and its relevance to programmes of study at the University. There was a general reluctance to take issues related to APEL on board, although it was emphasised that when students had chosen to put together claims they were treated with scrupulous fairness and academic rigour.

Lecturers’ attitudes to prior learning are complex and relate to different feelings about their work, their students and the context in which teaching and learning takes place. Thus lecturers feel protective towards the courses they teach and generally feel that it is important for students to complete these in full whatever their prior knowledge or experience. In the Science Faculty, it was felt that APEL would have a small role because of the nature of the courses, which are ‘knowledge based’, and ‘...very few students would have been able to gain that knowledge from experience.’ In the Business School, too, the view was that ‘...lecturers are doubtful whether experience in the workplace can ever be equivalent to work in the classroom in terms of learning.’ One colleague’s personal view is that in workplaces people are generally not encouraged to think or use their initiative, and that people with work experience coming to university may not be in the habit of thinking. In all faculties there were variations expressed of the view that lecturers want to get on with teaching their subject, with the implication that gaining credit for learning from experience was not an adequate substitute for taking a course. In the Business School the feeling was expressed that different students doing different things would ‘...detract from the concept of community and course culture, the notion that students should work together.’ and there was also ‘..a fear of a diminution of quality.’ This idea was reinforced by a lecturer in the Humanities Faculty who felt that it could be interpreted as diminishing one’s own credibility to have designed and worked up a module which a student then ‘...happens to have done all by himself.’ Another in the same faculty felt that ‘...APEL would be bypassing the sustained process of reading/writing which the pathway (Education Studies) is all about.’ These views support Hanson’s (1996) notion that adults should enter HE prepared to start from square one, setting aside any relevant knowledge and experience they bring with them.

In an environment where there is a strong emphasis on ‘productivity’, in terms of high student turnover and financial efficiency, the process of APEL is universally seen as complicated and involving too much work for staff. This is undoubtedly due in large part to the pressures on lecturers teaching very large groups of students with diminishing contact time per group. However there is also a pedagogic dimension to this attitude. One APEL co-ordinator described the process as involving ‘...a level of conceptualisation of what you are doing as a teacher and as a student which is mostly absent.’ Another felt that ‘…most lecturers are not interested in education, they are interested in their subject’. Views such as these reinforce the notion of HE as being knowledge rather than process oriented, about ‘knowing that’ rather than ‘knowing how’ (Barnett 1994) and this matches the expectations of many students, mature as well as traditional.

Although most lecturers had a positive attitude to students attempting to claim credit for experience in that they encouraged them, there was some feeling that students opting for APEL could be looking for an easy route to a qualification. ‘Most students do not think about learning as a process but focus on exams and results’ said one colleague. ‘Their reasons for opting for APEL are either to speed up the process of obtaining a degree or to avoid subjects they do not want to take such as Maths and Economics.’ On the other hand one lecturer recognised that obliging students to take compulsory modules which they felt they had already covered sometimes led to feelings of resentment. Students are thus often perceived as having a strategic attitude to their studies, which matches the tone of much contemporary writing about the aims and purposes of higher education, particularly any emanating from government sources or mouthpieces. Whilst not denying the importance and validity of practical goals in terms of employment and factors of time and money to students, our findings lead us to believe that these are paralleled and often overshadowed for mature students by the importance of learning processes and their own development as individuals.

Many students, particularly if they have been outside education for some time, experience a loss of identity on entering an HE institution. The large student body, the fragmented nature of the curriculum as a result of modularisation, the incoherent geographical characteristics of a non-campus university contribute to the impression of being an ant in a teeming anthill or a number. Some mature women returners have commented on the lack of personal contact with tutors, others have suggested that lecturers have a different attitude to mature students, that they feel they ‘...can’t just fob them off with any old stuff.’ (Peters 1998 p. 245). Generally, mature returners seem to feel, much as any other student does, that they are a very small fish in a big pond and that to expect any recognition as an individual different from others is to cause trouble or make themselves unpopular with the lecturers. This does not present a picture of an atmosphere where APEL is likely to thrive or in which a student might feel confident of getting recognition of past experience. Numbers of claims for experiential learning have been predictably low in all faculties, ironically even more so since proper quality assurance procedures have been put in place because of the bureaucracy involved. The only area which has accredited large numbers of students is in Community Nursing where structured support is offered to nurses upgrading their qualifications to degrees. The other routes which offer structured support are the ‘Making your Experience Count’ module and the Refugee Assessment and Guidance Unit programme. The reactions of students who have undertaken work for APEL on these routes have been almost universally positive as far as the process is concerned. Students on the module expressed surprise at the engagement of self which the process involved, something they did not expect from their studies at university. As one said:

I didn’t think until doing this module that a lot of the things I’ve been struggling with, feelings, outrage, anger, how to get around the system, how to make things better, would come to the fore.

Another gain from the module was the language in which to express their previous learning from experience in terms which would relate to the academic world. This was particularly important for refugees and asylum seekers starting a new life in a new country, and seeking to establish an identity within the UK system which accorded a place for the experience and knowledge accumulated from their past. Having suffered the loss of status entailed by exile, participants in the APEL process felt it helped them to make the transition of self into the new environment, making comments such as:

It helped me to redefine my goals.

It helped me identify my potential and appreciate it.

The most important aspect was the concept of change.

Although claims for credit by participants on these programmes were not always successful, they felt overwhelmingly that the process had been crucial to them in locating themselves and discovering the rules of the game. As one said: ‘This is the first time in the UK that I feel I am one of you, I belong.’ This is not to deny Barkatoolah’s (cited in Trowler 1996) point about the influences of stereotypes on assessors, but rather to suggest that empowering candidates by giving them the tools to deal with different types of assessors can provide a short term solution. At the same time issues need to be taken up by those in a position to do so. For example, as a result of discussions between the University wide APEL co-ordinator and a member of staff in the School of Education, it was possible to highlight the opportunities available within the modular framework to make space in the curriculum for a set of learning outcomes based on experience, in this case from a candidate with considerable experience as a deputy head in Africa, and to consult the course team on the possible award of credit. Battles have to be fought, very often on an individual basis, and there are sometimes failures which may prove discouraging for the individuals concerned. One student who was successful in her claim although unhappy with the grade awarded, felt that the reason APEL was not well understood across the University was because of the ‘patriarchal male’ dominance of the prevailing culture, in which APEL is seen as ‘a difficult area, emotional, feminine and marginal’. As a part-time student she had felt particularly isolated and found that the APEL process had helped her understand the programme planning and design systems, and given her support and guidance. It is another paradox that part time students, who could be seen to be most likely to benefit from APEL because they are mature, usually working, paying for their own studies and wanting to gain time, are acknowledged by lecturers and students to be the most neglected and marginalised in the modular system.

Coben and Hull (1994) suggest that APEL provides ‘...a possible approach to breaking down barriers and stereotyping within educational courses and beyond.’ It has been our experience that students from very diverse backgrounds and a broad age range have found the process of APEL useful in enabling them to position themselves within the higher education environment and developing a continuity between their previous selves and themselves as students. This has perhaps particularly been the case for students from under represented groups who have not considered themselves university material in the past. This is to a great extent because by undertaking the APEL process they have had access to guidance and support which were not available in other areas of their studies. There are undoubtedly difficulties when it comes to recognition and accreditation of experience, however the many successful cases of award of credit demonstrate that the system is workable given the commitment of the necessary resources for development. Unfortunately, whilst paying lip service to learner-centred learning through the supposed flexibility of modular systems and CATS, universities seem to be moving towards a mass production model where there is little scope for this type of development and where individual students are expected to fit in and conform for the sake of efficiency and for the purposes of ‘quality control’. At the same time lecturers are hanging on to old fashioned ideas of ownership of knowledge and their sole right to dispense it as they see fit. It is not surprising therefore that APEL has made little impact and barely receives a mention in government and institution documents on lifelong learning. If lifelong learning is to be meaningful for those who are expected to participate in it and learners are genuinely to take ‘...increased ownership of their own learning and its management throughout life.’ (Fryer 1997) a different culture needs to be established, one in which the contribution individual learners bring to the group learning situation and to the institution is recognised, valued and accommodated as an integral part of the academic process.

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