- 2016Approved/Agreed
- 2017Implementation
- 2018Implementation
- 2019Implementation
- 2020Implementation
- 2021Implementation
- 2022Completed
Background
The Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Education and Training) Act 2012 sets out the statutory basis for Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI)'s engagement with recognition of prior learning (RPL), mainly through establishing policies and criteria for access, transfer and progression (ATP) for providers.
The establishment of the RPL practitioner network in Ireland in 2014 provides an opportunity for the continuing sharing of national practices. QQI agreed to fund research to describe approaches and practices in publicly funded further education and training (FET) within the education and training boards sector in co-operation with Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI) to make recommendations for next steps.
Education and training boards (ETBs) are statutory FET providers; they manage centres for FET and adult education and training throughout the country. There are 16 ETBs in Ireland.
Objectives
Policy expectations from the provision of RPL services are high. The assumption is that if we make our skills and learning, however attained, visible as qualifications, ultimately there will be better skills matching and less unemployment and underemployment.
Description
The 2016-19 action plan for education includes the aim to develop a national policy on the recognition of prior learning (RPL) (objective 2.1, action No 44) by 2018. The 2025 National skills strategy that was published in 2016 has, among its objectives, the development of a system for RPL and better recognition of workplace learning in support of lifelong learning. In 2017, QQI published policies and criteria for validation in FET. RPL is also a part of the review of the national framework for qualifications (NFQ, the Irish national qualification framework).
The policy framework is set in 2016.
Education and Training Boards (ETBs) started to formalise RPL processes based on QQI's validation requirements.
In 2020, QQI released a new database, which provides a comprehensive and authoritative list of all quality-assured education and training qualifications offered in Ireland.
The Irish Register of Qualifications (IRQ) lists quality-assured, recognised qualifications offered by universities and institutes of technology, as well as private higher education colleges, ETBs, and private further education and training (FET) providers delivering courses leading to a QQI award. QQI is continuing to work with awarding bodies to ensure the database is fully populated and entries kept up-to-date.
The inaugural review of quality assurance in ETBs commenced in March 2021 with an expert review team meeting a cross-section of learners, staff and stakeholders at Louth and Meath Education Training Board.
Recognition of Prior Learning has been integrated into the National Skills Strategy to 2025.
Bodies responsible
- Department of Education and Skills (until 2020)
- Department of Education
- Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI)
Target groups
Entities providing VET
- VET providers (all kinds)
Thematic categories
Governance of VET and lifelong learning
This thematic category looks at existing legal frameworks providing for strategic, operational – including quality assurance – and financing arrangements for VET and lifelong learning (LLL). It examines how VET and LLL-related policies are placed in broad national socioeconomic contexts and coordinate with other strategies and policies, such as economic, social and employment, growth and innovation, recovery and resilience.
This thematic category covers partnerships and collaboration networks of VET stakeholders – especially the social partners – to shape and implement VET in a country, including looking at how their roles and responsibilities for VET at national, regional and local levels are shared and distributed, ensuring an appropriate degree of autonomy for VET providers to adapt their offer.
The thematic category also includes efforts to create national, regional and sectoral skills intelligence systems (skills anticipation and graduate tracking) and using skills intelligence for making decisions about VET and LLL on quality, inclusiveness and flexibility.
This thematic sub-category refers to further development of national quality assurance (QA) systems for IVET and CVET, for all learning environments (school-based provision and work-based learning, including apprenticeships) and all learning types (digital, face-to-face or blended), delivered by both public and private providers. These systems are underpinned by the EQAVET quality criteria and by indicative descriptors applied both at system and provider levels, as defined in Annex II of the VET Recommendation. The sub-category concerns creating and improving external and self-evaluation of VET providers, and establishing criteria of QA, accreditation of providers and programmes. It also covers the activities of Quality assurance national reference points for VET on implementing and further developing the EQAVET framework, including the implementation of peer reviews at VET system level.
Transparency and portability of VET skills and qualifications
European principles and tools, such as EQF, ESCO, ECTS, Europass and ECVET, provide a strong basis for transparency and portability of national and sectoral qualifications across Europe, including the issuing of digital diplomas and certificates.
This thematic category looks at how individuals are supported in transferring, accumulating, and validating skills and competences acquired in formal, non-formal and informal settings – including learning on the job – and in having their learning recognised towards a qualification at any point of their lives. This is only possible if qualifications are transparent and comparable and are part of comprehensive national qualifications frameworks. Availability of qualifications smaller than full and acquirable in shorter periods of time is necessary; some countries have recently worked on developing partial qualifications, microcredentials, etc.
This thematic sub-category concerns all developments related to national qualification frameworks (NQFs). As in most countries NQFs are in place and referenced to the European qualifications framework (EQF), the thematic sub-category covers updating and expanding the frameworks, developing new qualifications and using NQFs as catalysts for other reforms.
This thematic sub-category refers to validation mechanisms allowing individuals to accumulate, transfer, and recognise learning outcomes acquired non-formally and informally, including on-the-job learning, or in another formal system. In case they are not automatically recognised, a learner can have these learning outcomes validated and recognised through a particular process with a view to obtaining a partial or full qualification. This thematic sub-category covers such provisions and mechanisms.
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Validation Arrangements for Recognition of Prior Learning: Ireland. In Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Timeline of VET policies in Europe (2024 update) [Online tool].
https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/timeline-vet-policies-europe/search/28683