© UNESCO
The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), on behalf of the UNESCO Education Sector, has taken the initiative in working with Member States to develop the UNESCO Guidelines for the Recognition, Validation and Accreditation (RVA) of the Outcomes of Non-formal and Informal Learning. In June 2012, Mr Qian Tang, the Assistant Director-General for Education of UNESCO, officially approved the Guidelines and invited authorities in Member States to make efforts to implement the Guidelines in line with their specific national context. Acting upon this initiative, the DVV International Regional Office in Southeast Asia organised a workshop on 7 and 8 January 2013, in Vientiane (Lao PDR) to facilitate the implementation of the UNESCO Guidelines for RVA in the sub-region. Eighteen policymakers and experts from Cambodia, Laos, the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Centre for Lifelong Learning participated in the workshop. With the help of DVV International and the UNESCO Office in Ha Noi, the Guidelines were translated into the national languages of Cambodia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam and disseminated to national stakeholders in the three countries. Mr Jin Yang, Senior Programme Specialist of UIL, served as a resource person and made four presentations at the workshop on the following topics:
- Conceptual evolution and policy developments in lifelong learning – A UNESCO perspective;
- The nature of learning and the importance of non-formal and informal learning;
- Synthesis report on RVA in UNESCO Member States, and
- The key messages of the UNESCO Guidelines for RVA
During group work, the country teams elaborated on opportunities/strengths, threats/weaknesses and developed some concrete key action points for implementing the Guidelines in their countries in the next two years. Additionally, the participants also requested UIL and DVV International to continuously support the implementation of the Guidelines through provision of technical expertise and capacity building in developing skill assessment tools and qualification criteria. In all, the two-day Workshop successfully mobilised several key change agents in the three countries for implementing the UNESCO Guidelines, deepened participants’ understanding of key concepts of lifelong learning and RVA, and strengthened their capacity for implementing the UNESCO Guidelines for RVA. These outputs will result in concrete steps for Cambodia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam in constructing a national RVA system.
