The UDHEIT (Universal Design & Higher Education in Transformation ) conference took place in Dublin on October 30th to November 2nd https://www.udheit2018.com/ . Cork Institute of Technology as the research and evaluation partner of the VISKA project presented ‘A mapping and analysis of the validation arrangements for migrants, refugees and the low-qualified‘ under the theme Employment – Universal Design to eliminate barriers and promote employment.
The conference was attended by 300 delegates from industry, education, government and NGOs from across the world including Canada, United States, UK, Spain, France, Austria, Norway, Sweden and Germany.
The paper focused on the EU priorities of making skills visible as well as supporting mobility of workforce’s within Europe including the integration of migrants and refugees. The supportive, transnational processes for the recognition and validation of learning provide an opportunity to maximise human capital and to benefit labour markets and societies generally leading to improved economic performance.
As the research and evaluation partners in the VISKA (Visible Skills of Adults) project, Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) outlined the initial mapping process which provides a baseline set of data on the existing processes, procedural information and resources related to the validation of learning of migrants, refugees and those with low qualifications within partner jurisdictions prior to implementation of various interventions planned by the project team. This vital contextual information provides a context for the action based interventions and a framework for the evaluation of the outcomes.
Europe will benefit from a sustained approach to the sharing of practices on validation directed towards third-country nationals. The paper explored legislative and practical frameworks reported by the country partners as well as lived experiences of the key stakeholders and beneficiary focus
groups in four countries in Europe and is an important stepping stone towards impactful policy development.