“It is time that we had uncommon schools that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women. It is time that villages were universities…” This is the beautiful vision for education described by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden.
Today, such a vision is becoming a reality thanks to the credit bank. Similar to fixed deposits by instalments at commercial banks, learners can obtain credits for their fragmentary learning and deposit them like currency at authorised institutions. When they meet a certain standard, their credits can be exchanged for the corresponding degree and non-degree certificates.
What is a credit bank? What stage of construction has it reached? How do learners open “accounts” and obtain the relevant learning results?
Testing the waters: The construction of a national credit bank for vocational education is almost complete
Standing on the stage with certificate number 00001 in hand, Lin Li'ang from Guangzhou City Construction College was all smiles. On 6 November 2019, the first ceremony to confer BIM certificates as part of the “1+X” reform of national vocational education was held in Langfang, Hebei Province. 288 people, including Lin Li'ang, received the first BIM certificates.
Soon after, the achievements of their certificates were deposited in their individual learning accounts in the national credit bank of vocational education. This means that they can be exempted from corresponding classes once their learning results are identified.
A list of “20 items of vocational education” (stipulated in the Implementation Plan for National Vocational Education Reform) was promulgated at the beginning of 2019 in order to accelerate the construction of the national credit bank, explore the establishment of individual learning accounts related to vocational education, and make learning results traceable, queryable, and transferrable. The Open University of China (OUC), based on early project research and pilot practice, shoulders the heavy task of participating in the top-level design and construction of the national credit bank system.
“The credit bank should serve the construction of national standards and a training system for vocational education, and advance the reform of models such as the integration of industry and education.” According to Li Linshu, OUC vice president and director of the Credit Bank (Learning Outcome Accreditation Centre), the credit bank should focus on learning outcomes in the field of vocational education, as well as the demands of the holders of said learning outcomes . Individual learning accounts can be established and learning results can be registered, identified, stored, and accumulated. We can experiment with the transfer of learning results so as to promote the connection between degree certificates and vocational skill grade certificates, and to assist in the modernisation of vocational education in China.
“The construction of the national credit bank for vocational education is nearing completion. The pilot operation has shown that the national credit bank information platform for vocational education and the information management service platform for vocational skill grade certificates built with new technologies such as artificial intelligence, block chain, cloud computing, and big data are operating stably and producing good results.” According to Jing Degang, secretary of the Party Committee and president of the OUC, the credit bank has established business management accounts for educational administrators in 31 Chinese provinces, the Education Bureau of Xinjiang Production and Construction Group, 1,828 colleges and universities, and 14 training evaluation organisations.
Walking the path: The key to the identification and transfer of learning results
“A bank is not a bank without basic interest rate standards and corresponding standards for deposits, withdrawals, and exchanges. Such a bank is nothing but a warehouse,” Li Linshu said.
Li Linshu believes that the credit bank shouldn’t be as simple as establishing an account to deposit results. The more important thing is storing the results in an orderly fashion in accordance with certain standards and to make comparisons between other learning outcomes in the credit bank. This will demonstrate the value of the learning results and this value represents the learning capacity and career development capacity that the account holder shows through the storage and accumulation of learning results. This is also the application value of the credit bank.
Furthermore, standards of identification and exchange have a direct impact on the authority of the credit bank. “What are the rules for credit recognition? What is the number of learning hours for one credit? What are the corresponding learning objectives? What kind of learning results can be exchanged? All these issues should be open and transparent,” Yan Xiaoping, executive vice director of the OUC Credit Bank (Learning Outcome Accreditation Centre), said.
Therefore, the OUC, based on its early studies, has set out to conduct a special investigation of national vocational standards, teaching standards, and the status quo of education, teaching, and training inside and outside the OUC. In light of the demand for standards for cultivation and training within vocational education in China, the rules that the credit bank will use to create records of the hours spent on vocational education, cultivation, and training have been summarised and formulated. These credit record rules for learning hours in the national credit bank for vocational education can also be called “credit accreditation rules” for short. Both institutional users and individual users can register their learning outcomes on the platform and identify and store the credits according to the accreditation rules.
Learning results holders stand on one side of the credit bank and the authorities who issue certificates stand on the other. The pilot OUC credit bank has set up an alliance system that recognises the learning outcomes of both sides. They have organised for experts to examine the institutions that apply to join the alliance and their learning results. Once approved, they will be included in the list of the allied institutes and the catalogue of learning results. In accordance with the publicised lists and transfer rules, their credits can be used during the accreditation, accumulation, and transfer of learning outcome for the depositors.
“In the future, it is expected that the state will issue corresponding guiding policies, activating the participation of the institutes. In this way, the learners can not only discover more learning paths but also have more opportunities for credit transfer,” Li Linshu said.
Looking to the Future: Building a bridge to lifelong learning
“If a migrant worker in Gansu wants to go to work in Guangdong, it is no longer necessary for him to spend a lot of money on accommodation or a great deal of time receiving learning and training to get a certain certificate. Instead, he can study locally in Gansu and get the necessary transferable learning results identified by the credit bank, and recognised by the employee.”
Li Linshu has proposed an ideal learning scenario: in the near future, learners with different learning results in different enterprises and places can be recognised by the same employer through the accreditation of the authoritative institute of the credit bank. “Isn’t this a good thing for migrant workers and the practitioners of vocational jobs?” he says.
“The OUC has created a path for the learners to grow. Along this path, there will be relevant products and services provided by a huge variety of educational enterprises. They will promote learning resources in line with individual demands for growth and development,” Yan Xiaoping said.
It is clear that the establishment of the credit bank system isn’t just a simple way to identify, establish or transfer formal learning outcomes from traditional education. Instead, it is a way to certify and identify various kinds of learning results from different channels or learning results that were previously unrecognised according to certain standards. The learning results are accumulated gradually and are recognised once they are brought together. These fixed deposits by instalment can eventually be exchanged for the corresponding degree certificates or non-degree certificates.
“The core value of the credit bank lies in its promotion of lifelong learning for all. In the future, the credit bank can connect various kinds of learning results in order to advance the sharing of quality resources, to set up a bridge to lifelong learning, to promote the construction of a learning society where everyone can learn anywhere anytime, and to assist and serve the formulation of a lifelong learning education system for all,” Li Linshu said.
Contributed by Yu Zhen, China Education Daily