Higher education is expected to prepare students with skills relevant to the job market. In response to this, policy makers have begun integrating microcredentials into degree programs. Microcredentials carry academic credits, distinguishing them from traditional short courses. Therefore, it is important to focus on microcredentials by trusted providers, ensuring quality assurance and portability. Their expanded use will undoubtedly enable students to flexibly acquire skills of their interest while pursuing a degree.

Skills acquisition has become the focal point of various stakeholders’ expectations from higher education. One of the primary motivations of students for pursuing higher education is to acquire skills, as emphasized by the 2024 State of Higher Education Report by Lumina Foundation and Gallup. Furthermore, an increasing number of enterprises are struggling to recruit skilled employees, and employers have high expectations for universities to produce sufficiently skilled graduates to enter the job market, as revealed by the 2023 Eurobarometer report. In response to the growing emphasis on skills in higher education, microcredentials have risen in prominence due to their focus on practical skills.

The European Commission defines a microcredential as “proof of the learning outcomes that a learner has acquired following a short learning experience.” As we are well aware, certificate-awarding short courses are not something new. This is why the report of UNESCO entitled “Towards a Common Definition of Microcredentials” emphasizes that a short course needs to be offered by a “trusted” provider, meet the relevant quality assurance, and be “portable” across institutions to be classified as a “microcredential.” In higher education, challenges and opportunities exist with respect to enhancing these three distinctive features.

Trustworthy Providers: Navigating a Diverse Landscape

Different from typical short courses, microcredentials are transferable, meaning they can be used to receive exemptions from courses with similar content in an (under)graduate program. Furthermore, they are stackable, which means that a combination of microcredentials can lead to a real degree, such as a master degree. The transferability and stackability of a microcredential depends largely on the extent to which its provider is trusted by stakeholders.

The providers of microcredentials are quite diverse, including companies, public institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and universities. Learners who want to acquire a skill through microcredentials are usually willing to pay for it, which attracts for-profit providers. The microcredential market is currently dominated by private providers aiming to generate this income. These institutions may lack entry requirements, deliver a course online when it should be face-to-face, increase the class size as much as possible and/or minimize the course duration. This raises doubts about these providers, and, as a result, universities might be reluctant to recognize microcredentials awarded by them.

In a market where trust in providers of microcredentials is an issue, universities are among the most trusted. As they already have the authority to award degrees, other providers often partner with universities to benefit from their expertise. For example, FutureLearn, a well-known platform for microcredentials, collaborates with universities to offer their programs. Some universities, such as Clarkson University in New York, have even published an information page for corporate partners to develop joint microcredentials on their websites.

Supranational actors are also working to clarify who a trusted provider is. The Microcredentials Linked to the Bologna Key Commitments (MICROBOL) project of the European Commission detected the need and concluded that “a register of trustworthy providers” could be an effective solution. Such a list of trusted providers, accredited by quality assurance agencies, can help learners choose which provider to trust when selecting a microcredential and help universities decide whose microcredentials to accept.

Quality Assurance: Establishing Consistent Standards

Many short courses, including those offered by universities, lack consistent quality standards. There is significant variation in entry requirements, total workload, assessment methods, ID verification processes, and certificate details for courses on the same topic, depending on the provider. However, microcredentials, though a form of short course, are distinct from traditional short courses as they award academic credits to holders. This is why they are expected to have quality assurance to ensure the trustworthy equivalence of the credit at another institution for transfer purposes.

Stakeholders at various levels have developed strategies to determine quality standards for the microcredentials they offer. A group of learning platforms, including the European MOOC Consortium consisting of FutureLearn (United Kingdom), FUN (France), MiríadaX (Spain and Ibero-America), EduOpen (Italy), OpenupEd, and the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU), developed the Common Microcredential Framework (CMF). According to CMF, a microcredential should have a total workload of 100-150 hours, correspond to level 6-7 in the European Qualification Framework or the national university qualifications framework, fulfill the criteria of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), provide summative assessment, use a reliable method of ID verification during assessment, and provide a transcript showing the learning outcomes.

Some universities have established specific institutional guidelines for the quality of microcredentials they grant. For instance, Open University UK has stated that the microcredentials it provides must adhere to the quality assurance standards of all credit-bearing programs and must be in line with the most recent version of the CMF. Even if a microcredential is offered jointly by a university and another provider, the higher education institution remains responsible for quality assurance, as highlighted in the MICROBOL project. Therefore, universities’ experience in quality assurance is crucial.

Portability: Overcoming Recognition Challenges

A microcredential verifies that its holder has acquired a specific skill. This standalone value holds credit when transferred to a university. However, issues such as the lack of internationally standardized certification, reliable digital storage, trust in the provider, and quality assurance make the portability of microcredentials challenging. In order to minimize these obstacles, stakeholders have recently taken several measures.

The MICROBOL report concluded that a microcredential certificate should include the learner’s identification, information about the provider, details about the assessment, quality assurance, and the qualification framework level. On the other hand, the Dutch Organization for Internationalization in Education (NUFFIC) created a “traffic light model” to assess the transferability of a microcredential. According to this model, the recognition decision should be based on seven criteria: the quality of the course, verification of the certificate, course level, learning outcomes, workload, methods of assessing study results, and participant identification. Each criterion of a microcredential is evaluated and assigned a color—red, yellow, green, or dark green. Red indicates an absence of indicators, while dark green indicates strong or indisputable indicators. The overall decision is based on the amount of green and dark green indicators.

The digital storage of microcredentials also simplifies the recognition process. The European Commission has recently introduced the Digital Credentials Infrastructure on the Europass Portal, enabling universities and employers to access individuals’ earned credentials and verify their skills as needed. This enhances the portability of credentials across countries and reduces administrative burden.

Toward More Flexible Higher Education with Microcredentials

Policy makers have evidently taken steps to address student and employer demands for skills acquisition through microcredentials. However, it is important to acknowledge that advancements in artificial intelligence, automation, and digitalization necessitate individuals to upskill their skills consistently. Additionally, the Future of Jobs Report 2023 by the World Economic Forum has projected that 44 percent of workers will experience skill disruptions in the next five years, indicating the need for many individuals to undergo reskilling. In such a rapidly changing job market, a higher number of universities should integrate a wider range of microcredentials into the curricula of their programs in order to provide students with flexible pathways to acquire additional skills while working toward their degrees.

Hakan Ergin is assistant professor of higher education studies at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Türkiye. E-mail: [email protected].

X: hakanergin_he