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MICRO-CREDENTIALS
Micro-credentials are a new frontier for B.C.’s education sector
ALBERT VAN SANTVOORT
Professional and academic qualifications don’t necessarily carry as much weight with potential employers as they may have in the past.
In an increasingly competitive job market, job candidates are consistently reskilling, upskilling and cross-skilling to help them gain a competitive advantage or access to new opportunities.
The B.C. government recently committed $5 million toward the development of micro-credentials at public post-secondary institutions. Micro-credentials are short, flexible, competency-based programs designed with input from, and consideration of the needs of, both industry and community, according to Zoe MacLeod, associate vice-president of professional and continuing studies at Royal Roads University, a post-secondary institution with an applied and professional degree-granting focus.
By engaging with these less traditional post-secondary education models, students can gain industry-specific training required or sought after by employers.
In some ways, it’s the “polytechnicization” of post-secondary education. Rajiv Jhangiani, associate vice-president of teaching and learning at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), says that the demand for micro-credentials has in part come from a multi-decade trend in which businesses are investing less in the upskilling of their employees.
Currently, British Columbia’s post-secondary institutions are developing their micro-credential policies with input from industry. Jhangiani says the provincial government has given significant enthusiastic support to micro-credentials, and has helped galvanize the interest of the post-secondary sector and broader business community. KPU was the first to pass its institutional micro-credential policy in late 2021. “With this focus on skills development, which are competency-based by definition, there are a lot of micro-credentials developed in partnership with industry,” says Jhangiani.
Micro-credentials also provide the opportunity to teach students skills that might have been too niche for traditional post-secondary degree programs. Even if a skill is in high demand, it might not be broad or large enough to map over a two- or four-year degree. Instead, developing the skill might just need six weeks of detailed and intense focus. That is where the flexibility of micro-credential programs can help supplement larger post-secondary and professional degree programs.
Job training, and learning industry-specific skills, are only one small part of a post-secondary education; let alone the broader post-secondary experience. That is why Jhangiani, who helped develop the province’s micro-credential program, says that it is meant to compliment traditional, post-secondary education and is not intended to replace it. Some micro-credentials even bear credits, meaning various micro-credential programs can be combined to ladder into a degree, according to Jhangiani. “Whether we’re talking about soft skills or technical skills, those are all in really high demand,” says Jhangiani, “and so I think the nice thing about integrating this into our current offerings is it just allows you to articulate it much more easily.”
Not only can students obtain a degree, but they can receive competency badges that provide employers verifiable evidence of the more job-specific skills prospective employees have learned. Employers will be able see the date and time the training was completed, as well as link to evidence of demonstrations of those competencies, according to Jhangiani.
The benefits of these programs to employers are many. Not only is industry able to provide input and help shape various micro-credential programs, but doing so allows industry to more quickly respond to labour shortages and skill gaps. Industry can partner with post-secondary institutions to develop programs that meet their needs and outsource the training to education experts, rather than create their own internal training infrastructure. Job candidates are able to provide clearly articulated skill competencies that employers can easily identify, rely on and trust.
One of the major benefits of micro-credentials goes to people traditionally forgotten and left behind by post-secondary institutions. These programs are more flexible and less expensive, allowing working adults with families to engage in higher education. “I think this is primarily a way to tap underserved populations and better service them just by giving them that flexibility,” says Jhangiani. “I do think there are those who may have never interacted with higher education in the first place, whether because of a cost barrier or the opportunity cost in terms of taking time away from work, who would be able to benefit from engaging in this form of training.”
Kwantlen Polytechnic University passed an institutional microcredential policy in late 2021 • KPU
