Status of the French VAE

[delafaide]

The VAE Validation des Acquis de l'Expérience established in 2002 with the Loi de Modernisation sociale mandates (not allows) French Universities to grant part or full regular academic degrees on valuable work experience.

Many in the US did not believed this process, which is now, I think,legitimized. Here are the last VAE info available for the year 2008.

1. More than 4,000 degrees were awarded by French public universities. About the same number were given by private universities.
   
2. 52% were for full university degrees. This ratio increases constantly over the years. The VAE for simple university credits  (called ECTS) are diminishing.
   
3. Bachelor's and Master's are the most common degrees awarded through the VAE process. More and more public Universities like Strasbourg II grant Ph.D. Degrees.
   

I remember in 2004 self-proclaimed US experts that doubted of the existence of this Law and predicted that no French universities will ever grant a full degree on work experience!!!

It seems, from France, that now the VAE procedure is totally accepted by US Universities for their foreign applicants.Why US universities does not go the same way with PLA?

We were also ridiculed by forecasting that the European Bologna declaration system (3/5/8) will never be accepted by US universities. As far as I know European 3 years Bachelor's degree are accepted by US Universities for their graduate programs. (One of the first one being Duke 4 years ago)

Could you elaborate on that two points?

This thread is not about our institution, which pioneered International VAE but about the French procedure, that could be seen as revolutionary.
Merci beaucoup,

[ham]

VAE exists, much as PLAR provisions have ALWAYS been present in ANY educational system. VAE in fact means PLAR in French...

About VAE:
http://www.vae.gouv.fr/
From the horse's mouth...
http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid1106/la-...v.a.e.html

Dans la majeure partie des cas, [COLOR="Magenta"]le candidat doit remplir un dossier détaillant son expérience professionnelle et les compétences acquises. Il se présente ensuite devant un jury qui décide de valider tout ou partie du diplôme visé.[/COLOR] En cas de validation partielle des acquis, des prescriptions sont proposées au candidat en vue d'obtenir la totalité du diplôme.

[COLOR="SandyBrown"]Dans l'enseignement supérieur, la validation des acquis existait déjà avant la mise en place de la V.A.E.[/COLOR] Aujourd'hui encore, chacun peut faire valider son expérience professionnelle et personnelle pour accéder directement à un niveau de formation sans avoir le diplôme requis (décret du 23 août 1985). La loi de modernisation sociale du 17 janvier 2002, qui a créé la VAE, permet d'aller plus loin en autorisant les universités et les autres établissements d'enseignement supérieur à délivrer leurs diplômes ou leurs titres par une autre voie que celle de la formation ou l'apprentissage. La V.A.E. ramène la durée d'expérience de 5 à 3 ans.

VAE is just an acronym in French to designate credit given for prior learning/experience; something that one's local university down the block offers, too.
Be wary of parties with vested interests presenting 'exotic' VAE as surefire way to fast'n'easy degrees 110% PLAR.
It isn't easier to get a VAE degree from an accredited, official French university than it is to get one from one's local accredited, official university.
Some millists do (ab)use the term VAE much like they abuse(d) the wording of the UK education act claiming that the value of a degree shall be left to the sole appreciation of employers.
Why?
Because the target public is totally clueless and ignores the technicalities of unheard of, foreign laws in a language they can't even understand...but it's oh so sweet if a fast'n'easy degree can be granted on the basis of some mysterious foreign law... Liberia, anyone?

Not true. The French VAE system mandates French universities to grant credit or an entire degree without formal study in the university. This includes virtually all French universities. As you have said yourself, no US school will grant more than a certain percentage of the credits for a degree without formal unuiversity study (in residence). The term may be the same but the practice is quite different.

The term VAE is, of course abused by mills. This doesn't mean that it is not a legitimate practice in France.

sure...there are gigabytes of laws and procedures. I posted the relevant governmental websites. I am sure that complicate legal procedures cannot be translated into used car salesman's slogans that apply to everybody.
First the law 'mandates' nothing in the sense that universities are not 'obliged', but simply granted a possibility.
Most educational systems offer the possibility of being granted degrees without formal classes...I heard Steven Spielberg was awarded a degree by presenting 'Schindler's list' as a portfolio .
This provided you can find a university council, académie or university senate that will approve your request.
Most often they will simply make demands you can't meet.
In other words the typical reader of these websites isn't some Steven Spielberg or some billionaire philanthropist who can easily secure the approval of mostly any committee; the typical reader of these websites is mid-card Wong, Leroy, Pedro or Barney from mid-town Oklahoma.
Now how realistic is it to suggest to mid-card Barney from mid-town Oklahoma (or mid-town British Columbia...or mid-town Shanghai ) to initiate a complex procedure full of difficulties, casuistry and small print with a foreign government?
Can you successfully convince a French university committee arguing in French in France that it is in their best interest to grant you a full degree?
You don't even live in France after all...
I wouldn't, and I have a postgraduate degree in French.

VAE is surely legitimate; it is only the translation of PLAR after all; much like the 'UK education act' often referred to by millists exists and is legitimate. That has never meant that promises from dodgy schools and peddlers of bogus '110% PLAR' degrees have materialized in a legal way.
Buyer beware.

http://www.infovae-idf.com/html/procedure/valid2.html#1

Après un accueil dont l’objectif est de déterminer, en fonction de son projet, [COLOR="Red"][SIZE="3"]si[/SIZE] le candidat a choisi le bon diplôme et la bonne université,[/COLOR] le candidat doit constituer un dossier détaillé et argumenté mettant en évidence son potentiel, ses compétences acquises au cours de son itinéraire professionnel, en lien avec la certification demandée. Le candidat pourra être accompagné durant sa démarche par les conseillers en VAE de l’université et les enseignants.

Après inscription du candidat à l’université, si sa demande est recevable, le jury nommé par le président d’université, comportant des professionnels et une majorité d’enseignants chercheurs, expertisera le dossier et recevra le candidat. Il délivrera le diplôme ou indiquera les connaissances que devra acquérir le candidat pour l’obtenir en totalité.

En outre, après délibération d’une commission de VAE, un candidat pourra être autorisé à entrer en formation continue sur présentation d’un dossier.
L’évaluation par "mise en situation" : Dans ce mode d’évaluation, le candidat doit démontrer par des réalisations concrètes les compétences attendues et ce, dans les conditions d’exercice proches du contexte professionnel réel : en entreprise ou sur le plateau technique d'un centre de formation.

VAE IN ENGLISH...? THE FAULTY EXAMPLE SOME MAKE...

http://www.dauphine.fr/en/training-and-d...S=&print=1

I am afraid it is just a page of the portal translated into English (http://www.dauphine.fr/en/welcome.html ) much like http://www-ulp.u-strasbg.fr/en/bienvenue/; here is the Spanish version:http://www-ulp.u-strasbg.fr/es/bienvenue/

Beware of people online who mention mysterious lists of FRENCH universities supposedly offering VAE in English...but of course cannot produce the list as of now because it came from another site a long time ago and has since been "archived" and no traces is left...

I think life experience credit (call it what you might) is so much crap. Maybe it's worth 1 year of a bachelors degree. Too many people have worked 20 years on a job and still don't know an asterisk from a hole in the ground. That's why they hire a young snot with a degree to show them how to do things. If you give all 20 year people degrees all you have is a bunch of stupid people with degrees and no-one is any smarter.

In fact French VAE (the government process, not degree mills' hype ) is a very captious and long process; finally, one has to convince a committee made of both academics and experts in the field how it is in their best interest to grant one a full degree...in fact they might just grant partial exemptions...plus one may be asked to further prove one's skills in a controlled environment.

Of course 'life experience' is a big word...one may have worked 20 years as insurance agent and have acquired some gift of the gab (a cold caller has more of it ) and superficial knowledge of the law in the field; the bulk of his knowledge, however, concerns procedures and lifestyle typical of the one -or the few- companies he may have worked with, which may or may not apply to another employer.

That is why legitimate PLAR schemes exist everywhere, but in spite of being much talked about, one can count legitimate degrees entirely awarded on a PLAR basis.

To know more about Université francophone Robert de Sorbon alternatively called Ecole Supérieure Robert de Sorbon, see here.

[RespectableGent]

Why US universities does not go the same way with PLA?

Colleges in the US are already operating far worse PLA programs. At an American college it's possible to get an accredited degree in under three hours based on a single easy multiple choice test.

http://www.dltruth.com/showthread.php?tid=720

[BROWN TEAL]

Why US universities does not go the same way with PLA?

Colleges in the US are already operating far worse PLA programs. At an American college it's possible to get an accredited degree in under three hours based on a single easy multiple choice test.
http://www.dltruth.com/showthread.php?tid=720

Good stuff RG - this is precisely how RCD, Gus & Puffman got their RA "degrees".
I'll be interested to read what Ham has to say about this.

[delafaide]

Please note than Belgium is now applying also the VAE.

[WilliamW]

VAE, PLA, BFD! Now it's called "Competency Based Education." Get hip; new name for old stuff makes old stuff new stuff.

Blazing the Trail: Competency-Based Education at SNHU
A Brief Q&A with Paul LeBlanc
By Mary Grush
12/18/13

Southern New Hampshire University's competency-based program, College for America, is opening up new options for the assessment of student learning. It's also turning the notion of the traditional credit hour, and all it supports, on its ear. Here, CT asks Southern New Hampshire University President Paul LeBlanc about the implications of competency-based assessment.

Mary Grush: We have been hearing a lot recently about competency-based education. Where do we stand in its development?

Paul LeBlanc: Competency-based education is a hot topic right now, but in reality it's been around for a long time — some would argue 30 or even 40 years. A whole host of institutions have worked in this space: important institutions like Excelsior, Charter Oak State College, and more recently, Western Governors University. They have really moved the dial on how we think about education and measuring outcomes and competencies. What's different now, though, is that we've crossed a line and moved into a new generation of competency-based programs — and here I would include our program, College for America — that are actually fully untethered from the credit hour.

Grush: What is being untethered?

LeBlanc: That's a really critical piece to understand. The credit hour was designed about a hundred years ago to figure out how to pay pensions to retired faculty members. That's why it was created. But, interestingly, it's come to permeate higher education, almost as the defining artifact within our industry. It has come to define how we unitize knowledge or learning [such as "the 3-credit hour course"]. It is how we define faculty workload and how we pay people. It is how we allocate our physical resources, and it drives classroom scheduling. It's how we measure student progress towards a degree — it's actually how we shape or define degrees. And importantly, it's the basis for giving out $150 billion dollars per year in federal financial aid. All of that is tied to the credit hour.

Grush: And the College for America program at SNHU is, instead, fully untethered from the credit hour?

LeBlanc: Yes. There is a provision under Title IV that allows for an exception to credit hour-based programming; for direct assessment of student learning. Our program is the first to be approved by the Department of Education under that provision. We decided that College for America will have no courses; no credit hours. What we have instead is 120 competencies — 120 "can do" statements; claims we make for student learning.

This is profound in that it reverses a really fundamental relationship embedded in the credit hour, which is: Time is fixed, and learning is variable. The credit hour is pretty good at telling you how long somebody sat at a desk. But it's not so good at telling you what they learned.

So, now what we have said [instead of "Time is fixed, and learning is variable."] is that we are going to be really clear about the claims we make for learning. We have 120 claims [or competencies], defined with rubrics, and we will share how we assess and share the evidence of that assessment.

Grush: For example?

LeBlanc: When we make a claim for competency around the ability to make presentations, we define that in terms of a rubric. It's very transparent: Students know how they are going to be judged — they can see the rubric. We make an assessment and that presentation, that evidence, will be stored in a Web-based portfolio.

Grush: So, you have removed the credit hour as a building block to a degree, and placed your full emphasis on the competencies — the claims you make for the student's learning?

LeBlanc: Yes. This has enormous implications, because we've taken that fundamental building block and changed the polarity of that molecule [to borrow from physics], if you will.

Grush: What does your record then show?

LeBlanc: Under the credit hour system, which is not very good at defining learning, transcripts don't tell people very much about the student's learning. For example, if you have a "B" in Intro to Sociology, most people that I know would look at your transcript and figure that you did presumably better than someone with a "B-" or a "C+". And they can infer a few things from the course title, but that's about it — they don't really know what you know. But in our case, they get to see exactly the claims we make for the learning.

Grush: Then is there less emphasis on content delivery, and more on outcomes?

LeBlanc: When you think about outcomes and competencies, you worry less about inputs. I always like to say: If you are crystal clear about the claims you make for learning, and you are rock-solid about your assessments, then no one should care how you got students to that finish line.

[delafaide]

Mr. Ham said that VAE (Validation des Acquis de l'Expérience) is a rare tedious process in france Hum Ham Hum...


According to the French VAE Portal in 10 years (2002-2012) 100 000 regular degrees (not credits) were bestowed upon, through this procedure.
As usual you may not trust our VAE expertise but...

[ham]

just keep trumpeting for attention...you might get some...sooner or later...no guarantee it's going to be the kind of attention you yearn for, if you get my drift

[delafaide]

just keep trumpeting for attention...you might get some...sooner or later...no guarantee it's going to be the kind of attention you yearn for, if you get my drift

.Could we be adult this discussion is about VAE not my institution (i sais it from the beginning. I just point out that the VAE for full degrees surpasses 100.000 in 12 years according to the French government.

You said that it was, tell me if i am correct a very rare procedure that it is not the case.
Also sorry what drift means..?(As you know I am am French and we are not very good at English).
Sincerely yours,

---

just keep trumpeting for attention...you might get some...sooner or later...no guarantee it's going to be the kind of attention you yearn for, if you get my drift

Sorry I was not talking (as said before) about my institution but about the VAE procedure in General, a procedure that you seem not to like,... Its your right.

It seems to me that you said that it was a very rare procedure, Am I right? In fact, is not the case as according to the French Gvt. 100 000 VAE finished in getting a full U. degree in 12 years. from Public universities.

What is a Drift ?, I did not get it. (sorry I am not anglophone

Also please avoid ridiculous threat, I was just talking about a procedure which is use by public universities in my country...
and I thought it could be interestingto the education specialists, even if they are against it.