Prior learning and skills assessment
Successful transitions into employment build on the prior experience and accumulated knowledge of individuals. Without formal mechanisms to recognize experience and skills, people cannot find jobs that use their full potential. This results in severe costs both to the individual, who must spend extra time and money acquiring formal credentials, and to society, which must pay the cost of duplicating unrecognized learning and experience.
Prior learning assessment (PLA) refers to a variety of methods used to assess two types of learning -- prior experiential learning (knowledge and skills acquired outside the formal education system) and prior academic learning (knowledge or qualifications gained within the jurisdiction of another education system).
For workers whose qualifications were earned in other jurisdictions, PLA can promote a speedy transition into the labour force by ensuring that barriers to employment are eliminated and that wasteful underemployment of highly qualified people does not occur. The unnecessary, lengthy and costly retraining of immigrants can also be avoided.
PLA allows workers who have been laid off to obtain official recognition for the knowledge and skills they acquired in one job that may be useful in another. These individuals have years of job-related experience but no credentials.