Content uploaded by Linda Cooper
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Linda Cooper on Jan 30, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
This article was downloaded by: [University of Cape Town Libraries]
On: 22 April 2013, At: 02:18
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
International Journal of Lifelong
Education
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tled20
Recognition of prior learning: exploring
the ‘knowledge question’
Linda Cooper a & Judy Harris b
a University of Cape Town, South Africa
b Thompson Rivers University, British Columbia, Canada
Version of record first published: 21 Mar 2013.
To cite this article: Linda Cooper & Judy Harris (2013): Recognition of prior learning:
exploring the ‘knowledge question’, International Journal of Lifelong Education,
DOI:10.1080/02601370.2013.778072
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02601370.2013.778072
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-
conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation
that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any
instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary
sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Recognition of prior learning: exploring the
‘knowledge question’
LINDA COOPER
a
and JUDY HARRIS
b
a
University of Cape Town, South Africa;
b
Thompson
Rivers University, British Columbia, Canada
This article addresses the ‘knowledge question’ in the Recognition of Prior Learning
(RPL) in relation to postgraduate programmes. In contrast to many traditional theorisa-
tions of RPL which draw largely on adult and experiential learning theory, the article
starts from a position of knowledge differentiation and explores whether the nature of
the discipline or knowledge domain offers affordances or barriers to RPL.
In an interview survey, academics in a South African higher education institution were
asked their views on the feasibility of RPL in relation to postgraduate study in their disci-
pline. Data analysis draws primarily on concepts from Bernstein to identify different
forms of knowledge and the ways in which that knowledge might be transformed and for-
mulated as curricula. Findings suggest that the disciplinary context or knowledge domain
into which an RPL candidate is seeking access does play a role in determining the feasi-
bility of RPL. However, distinct organisational environments offer affordances and barri-
ers to the implementation of RPL and there is also significant room for the exercise of
pedagogic agency. It follows that RPL cannot be reducible to ‘one size fits all’, but needs
Linda Cooper is based in the Centre for Higher Education Development at the
University of Cape Town. She is Associate Professor in Adult Education, and is
involved in initiatives to broaden access to higher education by adult learners.
Her research interests include: the history and contemporary practice of worker
education; the impact of globalisation on workplace learning and knowledge;
theorising informal learning in community and work-based contexts; and the
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). She works in an educational support
capacity with South Africa trade unions, and is involved in the training of trade
union educators.
Judy Harris is a freelance researcher and Adjunct Professor at Thompson Rivers
University, British Columbia, Canada. Her research interests include the recogni-
tion of prior learning, work-based learning and widening participation in higher
education, particularly their curricular and pedagogic implications using per-
spectives drawn from the sociology of education and knowledge. Her most
recent publications are Re-theorising the recognition of prior learning (co-editor with
Per Andersson, NIACE, 2006) and Researching the recognition of prior learning: Inter-
national perspectives (with Mignonne Breier and Christine Wihak, NIACE, 2011).
Judy has acted as consultant to the Ministerial Task Team of the South African
Department of Higher Education and Training (2012) and to the Namibian
Training Authority (2011). She is a Board Member of the Prior Learning Inter-
national Research Centre (PLIRC) based at Thompson Rivers University. Corre-
spondence: Judy Harris, Thompson Rivers University, British Columbia, Canada.
Email: judithanneharris@yahoo.co.uk
Int. J. of Lifelong Education, 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02601370.2013.778072
Ó2013 Taylor & Francis
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
to assume different forms in diverse institutional and disciplinary settings. RPL for access
to postgraduate study in a university will vary according to the purpose and design of the
programme to which the candidate is seeking access. This supports a position that RPL
should be seen as a specialised pedagogical practice that provides tools for navigating
access to new learning opportunities across diverse contexts.
Introduction
This article explores the ‘knowledge question’ in the Recognition of Prior
Learning (RPL). It poses the question: To what extent does the nature of the
disciplinary or knowledge domain into which RPL candidates seek access deter-
mine the feasibility of RPL?
1
It starts from an assumption of the differentiation
of knowledge, in other words that while knowledge gained from life and work
experience may be as valuable as formal, academic knowledge, these two forms
of knowledge are not the same. A corollary of this is that experiential knowledge
does not necessarily or automatically provide an adequate basis for access into
academic study.
The article critically explores the role of knowledge in RPL via a case study of
one higher education institution in South Africa. In South Africa, RPL carries
particular significance. It is regarded as not only crucial for skills development
and lifelong learning in the context of the global ‘knowledge economy’, but is
also seen as contributing to social justice through its potential to widen access to
learning opportunities for those previously denied them under apartheid. The
university in this case study, along with all higher education institutions in South
Africa, has a policy in place which allows for RPL access into both undergradu-
ate and postgraduate study.
Literature suggests that access via RPL into higher education has been lim-
ited.
2
This seems to be true not only of South Africa: Harris, Breier, and Wihak
(2011, p. 4) report that internationally, RPL practice lags behind policy and
there is low over-all take up, despite policy commitments and funding availabil-
ity. Why has RPL ‘not fulfilled its promise as a fast-tracking assessment device’
(Ralphs, 2009)? Is there simply a lack of political will or are there deeper, episte-
mological constraints?
In order to address these questions, the article examines the findings of an
interview survey of academics drawn from a range of disciplines across the uni-
versity to gauge their views on the feasibility of access via RPL, specifically in
relation to postgraduate study where programmes engage with advanced bodies
of knowledge in diverse and highly specialised fields. This survey forms part of a
wider research project, ‘RPL as Specialised Pedagogy’, which aims to explore the
terms and conditions under which RPL could act as a more effective strategy for
widening access and for going to scale. The research has four sites, one of which
is the focus of this article—— RPL access into postgraduate programmes at a
research-oriented South African university.
3
Postgraduate programmes with a professional or vocational orientation were
selected as the focus for this study for a number of reasons. First, they are seen
as important in the context of South Africa’s skills development needs (Kraak,
2004). There are also strong equity reasons for developing continuing education
opportunities for those South Africans who, because of historical disadvantage,
2LINDA COOPER AND JUDY HARRIS
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
were not able to acquire a first/foundation degree, but who have significant
workplace or professional experience.
In the institution under consideration, RPL has been conducted on a rela-
tively small scale and the majority of successful applicants have been to postgrad-
uate, professional programmes. The RPL literature (e.g. Breier & Burness, 2003;
Harris, 2000) points to the fact that RPL is frequently more common and more
successful at this level because the curricular focus is on contextualised knowl-
edge and skills closer to the point of application than is the case in undergradu-
ate study. Previous research at this particular university, however (Harris, 2004;
Michelson, 2004; Peters, 2000) underscored academics’ reluctance to engage
with RPL and the barriers that exist for RPL candidates in an epistemologically
conservative institution that prides itself on being a ‘world-class’, research-ori-
ented university in Africa. All the above factors make this a particularly challeng-
ing site for a knowledge-oriented investigation.
Review of the literature and theoretical debates
Starting from an assumption of the differentiation of knowledge means that
RPL practitioners need to provide appropriate pedagogic support for candidates
to navigate their way into different academic discourses. This position stands in
contrast to traditional theorisations of RPL which draw largely on adult and
experiential learning theory (Andersson & Harris 2006). Kolb’s (1984) experien-
tial learning cycle is often central, where experience and reflection on experi-
ence are theorised as being the basis for new learning, thereby foregrounding
the recognition and valuing of knowledge produced in non-formal and informal
contexts. Boud, Cohen, and Walker (1993) augment Kolb’s theory by paying
close attention to the process of reflection in experiential learning. Neither Kolb
nor theorists of experiential learning more generally explore the nature of
knowledge in any depth. Where they do discuss knowledge it is largely from the
perspective of social psychology rather than connecting with the rich and varied
debates about the nature of knowledge within philosophy and social theory. As
a result, RPL is mainly seen as a device to map one body of knowledge (e.g.
working knowledge) against another (e.g. academic knowledge), rather than an
exploration of the relationship between the two.
In South Africa, the question of knowledge has formed the basis of broader
critiques of education policies based on outcomes-based education, an approach
that emphasises ‘learning by doing’ and which downplays the necessity for the
pedagogic transmission of formal bodies of knowledge. At the centre of critiques
of outcomes-based education is the argument that experiential knowledge is not
the same as codified, formal knowledge. While the former is often contextually
situated, codified knowledge is more abstract and capable of generalisation
across contexts. As Ralphs (2009, p. 7) has argued: ‘Where and how knowledge
is acquired or constructed really does matter and cannot be assumed as insignifi-
cant in the assessment and certification thereof’. Moving from experiential
knowledge to codified knowledge does not happen automatically or through
reflection alone: it is a complex process that requires deliberate pedagogy. Fur-
thermore, experiential knowledge can sometimes act to block the acquisition of
formal, codified knowledge (Breier, 2003, 2006; Harris, 2004, 2006; Shalem &
EXPLORING THE ‘KNOWLEDGE QUESTION’ 3
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
Steinberg, 2006). Such critiques go to the heart of RPL: their implications are
that experiential knowledge cannot necessarily or easily be calibrated against for-
mal knowledge, nor is it automatically a good platform for the acquisition of
codified knowledge. The implications of this position are that RPL should be
reconceptualised as a ‘specialised pedagogy’:
RPL is seldom reducible to a technical formula for measuring equivalence
and allocating common currency (credit); it is itself a distinctive pedagogic
practice, an encoded practice with distinctive purposes and rules of
description that provides the tools for navigating learning and assessment
practices in and across the different contexts of the system. (Ralphs, 2009,
p. 13, emphasis added)
The acknowledgement that there are different forms of knowledge underpins
critical perspectives on RPL. A large body of literature argues that it is unequal
power relations, for example, the traditional university’s monopoly of a form of
knowledge production that privileges individualised and rationalist ways of know-
ing over collective and contextualised knowledge practices (Michelson, 1996,
2006), that act to block access via RPL. In earlier issues of this journal, Armsby,
Costley, and Garnett (2006) argue that difficulties in implementing RPL are (in
part at least) brought about by the challenge this practice brings to the univer-
sity’s traditional monopoly of knowledge, while Anderson and Guo (2009) show
that immigrant professionals, even those with high levels of formal education,
have their prior learning discounted and devalued. In earlier work, one of the
authors of this article (Cooper, 2006) argues that some forms of ‘subjugated
knowledge’ (for example the knowledge of trade union activists) may be unrec-
ognisable to the academy because they are expressed and shared through
different cultural forms.
To return to the research question underpinning this article, we were inter-
ested in whether we could find evidence that the nature of the discipline or
knowledge domain offers affordances or barriers to RPL access, or whether
obstacles to the implementation of RPL lie rather in a lack of political will to
implement RPL or in the rejection of forms of knowledge that academics cannot
immediately recognise.
Research methodology
As noted earlier, the article focuses on the findings of an interview survey car-
ried out with academics across a South African higher education institution.
This was an interpretive study aimed at ‘testing’ the validity of the knowledge-dif-
ferentiation thesis via identifying the views of academics who are leaders in their
disciplinary fields, regarding the feasibility of RPL in relation to postgraduate
study in their discipline. Sixteen interviewees were selected in such a way as to
maximise disciplinary and institutional diversity. These included:
• academic leaders of postgraduate studies in five faculties (Science,
Commerce, Law, Humanities and Health Sciences);
4LINDA COOPER AND JUDY HARRIS
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
• leaders of eight professional postgraduate programmes (Transport Studies,
City and Regional Planning, Creative Writing, Film and Media, Health and
Rehabilitation (including Nursing, and Disability Studies), Education
(including Technology in Education);
• a leader of one research-focused programme (History); and
• two people in institutional leadership/management positions.
The university’s ethical procedures were followed regarding informed consent,
confidentiality
4
and respect for the integrity of knowledge. The purpose of the
interviews was outlined to the participants as follows:
The aim of these interviews is for the project to better understand the
range of perspectives (positive perspectives and concerns) on access via
RPL i.e. across all faculties and a spread of disciplines and types of pro-
gramme. This may involve drawing on your experiences of particular mod-
els and approaches—— and/or on your more general sense of the
legitimacy of RPL.
The interviews were semi-structured, and probed current criteria and processes
regarding access to postgraduate study; views on the feasibility (or otherwise) of
RPL at postgraduate level in different disciplines, knowledge domains and pro-
grammes; perspectives on the role of experiential knowledge in higher educa-
tion programmes; and the nature of faculty decision-making regarding
admissions via RPL.
Conceptual framework
The question at the heart of this research is closely related to broader questions
around curriculum differentiation and epistemological access. Drawing from the
sociology of education, we developed a conceptual framework for analysis of the
interview data based largely on the work of Basil Bernstein (1996, 2000). Bern-
stein provides particularly useful ways of distinguishing between different forms
of knowledge and for identifying the ways in which knowledge might be trans-
formed and formulated as curricula. Key concepts drawn upon cluster around
notions of ‘knowledge structure’; the strength (or weakness) of boundaries
between different forms of knowledge; the relationship between theoretical and
practical knowledge; and the idea that some degree of ‘pedagogic agency’ oper-
ates in the space opened up by the move between knowledge production and
curriculum.
Bernstein delineates different knowledge forms. Firstly, he contrasts the
context-specific ‘horizontal discourse’ of everyday life and work, with the
codified, formal ‘vertical discourse’ of institutions. A distinction is made between
two types of vertical discourse. The natural sciences exemplify a ‘hierarchical
knowledge structure’ where the development and structure of knowledge is
cumulative towards ‘more and more general propositions which integrate
knowledge at lower levels and across an expanding range of apparently different
phenomena’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. 161). In contrast, the social and human
sciences exemplify ‘horizontal knowledge structures’. Here the development of
EXPLORING THE ‘KNOWLEDGE QUESTION’ 5
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
knowledge is characterised by the addition of ‘specialised languages’ that offer
‘the possibility of a fresh perspective, a new set of questions, a new set of
theories, and an apparently new problematic’ but less capacity for cumulative
and vertical progression (Bernstein, 2000, p. 162).
The concept of knowledge structure is associated with the notion of strong
and weak boundaries, i.e. the degree to which disciplines or curricula are insu-
lated from, or allow for importation of, knowledge from other disciplines or
knowledge domains. While the pure or hard sciences tend to be more imperme-
able to everyday knowledge, an example of the much weaker classification of
social sciences that draw on the resources of the everyday is illustrated in the fol-
lowing quote from Bernstein (1996, p. 178):
In History we have seen the development of oral history, in English the
incorporation of popular media and narrative, in Sociology the rise of eth-
nography, in Feminist Studies (and to some extent in Black Studies) expe-
riential/confessional narratives have been given the status of methodology,
whilst Cultural Studies, virtually a postmodern collection code, takes as its
data (but not exclusively so) the fashions, foibles and spectacles drawn
from horizontal discourse.
We also sought to take into account the relationship between theoretical and
practical knowledge in curriculum—— or the question of proximity or distance
from point of application. In professional and vocational higher education previ-
ously separate disciplinary categories (‘singulars’ in Bernstein’s language) are
combined according to a relational principle usually drawn from the require-
ments of practice or the world of work. The traditional professions of medicine,
architecture, accountancy and engineering are all examples of interdisciplinary
knowledge ‘regions’ (Bernstein, 2000). In contrast to these traditional profes-
sions with their strong identities and their foundations in stable, incremental
bodies of knowledge are newer additions—— journalism, management, business
studies, communication studies, sports science and tourism—— which Muller
(2008) describes as ‘4th generation’ professions with weaker professional identi-
ties, less-clear foundational disciplines and greater proximity to the point of
application.
Writing on vocational pedagogy and the relation between knowledge and
practice, Gamble (2009) argues that vocational or professional curricula draw on
two forms of knowledge: conceptual knowledge and everyday empirical knowl-
edge (experience or practice). Different curricula offer different combinations
of the two which are in turn related to different epistemological perspectives on
knowledge and practice. The relationship between knowledge and practice in
curriculum can vary according to a number of modalities, one being the logic
determining selection of content and curriculum coherence; these can either
follow a strong conceptual logic (related to hierarchy of concepts in the knowl-
edge field) or a stronger contextual logic (according to what is relevant to the
‘real world’; Gamble, 2009, p. 11).
Muller (2008) argues that there is a distinct ‘connecting logic’, albeit not
mechanical or direct, between knowledge structure and curriculum structure.
However, curriculum is not wholly determined by knowledge structure. In our
analysis, we drew on the notion that as knowledge is moved (‘recontextualised’
6LINDA COOPER AND JUDY HARRIS
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
in Bernstein’s terms) from its field of production (the field of research) into the
field of reproduction (curriculum and pedagogy), a space—— or a ‘discursive
gap’—— opens up. Here it is possible for pedagogic agency, the curriculum devel-
oper’s ideas around the purpose of education, his/her notions of an ideal lear-
ner and assumptions of how learning best takes place, to come into play.
Before analysing the interview data, we drew up a set of ‘hypotheses’ of how
we anticipated academics might view the feasibility of RPL if arguments about
the importance of the knowledge structure of their disciplines were valid. We
predicted that academics in the pure sciences (‘singulars’), including profes-
sional programmes drawing on those sciences, would be most resistant to RPL.
We assumed that the cumulative nature of the content (based on hierarchical
knowledge structures) would mean that clearly specified conceptual foundations
usually acquired through formal study would need to be in place for a student
to engage at postgraduate level.
Conversely, we anticipated that academics involved in programmes in the arts
and social sciences—— in particular, the professional programmes that draw from
them and which are closer to practice—— would be more amenable to RPL. In
these more weakly bounded (classified) disciplines, based on horizontal knowl-
edge structures, the conceptual content in most programmes is less clearly
defined. Because of this, we predicted that academics would need to rely on
proxies such as general cognitive abilities, academic literacies and dispositions to
gauge suitability for access via RPL.
Research findings
Findings revealed congruence with and divergences from our hypotheses. Both
are interesting: convergences offer more nuanced detail about where and why
RPL is easy or difficult to implement; divergences provide evidence that knowl-
edge and knowledge structures do not impact in a deterministic way on the fea-
sibility of RPL in relation to a particular programme. Some illustrative findings
are presented drawing from the institutional, disciplinary and curricular diversity
that characterised the data.
It is important to note that our findings necessarily reflect the personal, pro-
fessional and intellectual views of the academics interviewed, and cannot be
assumed to translate directly into established curriculum or teaching practices
within programmes or departments/faculties.
5
Science postgraduate programmes: ‘we know what we are looking for’
The space for RPL at postgraduate level in the Science Faculty revolves around
there not necessarily being a need for a candidate to have an honours degree in
order to access masters. Although a science first degree is necessary, thereafter
three or four years of relevant work experience can count. ‘Relevant’ is the key
word; work experience needs to approximate academic modes of knowledge
production, for example, experience of laboratory research. The interviewee
explained that that is relatively easy in science because of the knowledge struc-
ture: ‘things are more clear-cut in science - we know what we are looking for’:
EXPLORING THE ‘KNOWLEDGE QUESTION’ 7
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
We can tell if someone has relevant work experience—— if they have worked
in a lab or have been doing experiments for SASOL or some chemical
company—— or if they have written reports to their industrial line manager
or if they have written patents—— and if there is evidence of that, then it’s
clear cut—— they can write, they can think [...] that’s what a [honours
degree] gives you as a training or introduction to research.
Dispositional attributes such as ‘maturity’, ‘motivation’, ‘rapport’ and ‘creativity’
were also linked to success as were judgements about the potential ‘to be a good
researcher’. These findings represent some degree of divergence from our
hypotheses in that the interviewee chose to stress the importance of work experi-
ence, aptitude and disposition rather than (or in addition to) discipline-specific
concepts.
In line with our expectations, it was acknowledged that potential for the
expansion of RPL in the sciences lay in interdisciplinary and professional areas
that are closer to practice, such as Oceanography, Zoology, Biological Sciences
and Environmental Management. It is likely that the curricula of such pro-
grammes follow a stronger contextual logic and are closer to the point of appli-
cation, making them more accessible to RPL candidates.
Engineering: reliance on proxies in interdisciplinary knowledge programmes
We anticipated that engineering, with its strong mathematics and science knowl-
edge base, could be regarded as strongly bounded (or classified) and therefore
not conducive to RPL. As expected, for most postgraduate programmes in the
Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment a first degree is required.
However, the Faculty has drawn up a ‘roadmap’ which specifies exactly how
science-based qualifications ‘lower’ than a degree might be combined with work
experience to allow postgraduate entry, thus allowing for some degree of RPL
access.
Departing from the roadmap, however, are two interdisciplinary masters pro-
grammes. The Transport Studies programme is open to undergraduates from
‘engineering, science or social science’ while the City and Regional Planning
programme takes people from ‘music, film, chemistry, absolutely anywhere’
because it draws from a range of theoretical bases, including ‘economic theory,
social theory, and institutional theories’. We found an emphasis on general cog-
nitive and meta-cognitive abilities, intellectual skills and academic literacies to
determine suitability for access:
I’m looking for an ability to think—— to engage with policy debates at an
intellectually high level—— someone who, when presented with a problem,
can frame that problem—— evidence-based reasoning—— critical reflection
on accuracy of data. The prior qualification is not always a good indicator
of how well a person responds (Transport Studies).
A City and Regional Planning lecturer argued that what is most needed to be
successful in that particular programme is ‘spatial–conceptual’ ability, ‘the ability
to conceptualise both processes and possibilities’, to ‘draw theory from different
areas’ and to ‘do it (simultaneously) at different scales’. What this seems to
8LINDA COOPER AND JUDY HARRIS
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
highlight is the need for a high level of conceptual dexterity and interdisciplin-
ary literacy. Thus, clearly specified conceptual knowledge need not be in place
for a student to engage in these postgraduate programmes, as programme
leaders rely on proxies in the form of general cognitive abilities, academic litera-
cies and learner dispositions to gauge suitability for access.
Although experiential knowledge was seen as ‘not enough in itself’, it was
nevertheless seen as contributing to individuals’ success prior to entry, providing
it was relevant in terms of level and similarity to academic discourse. Inside the
programme itself ‘those students who come with work experience may contrib-
ute to and enrich the overall class discussions and bring valuable insights from
their particular experience in industry’, ‘especially when discussing policy ques-
tions, we get into rich debate’.
Commerce: the difference between traditional and fourth-generation
professional programmes
A leading academic in the Faculty of Commerce spoke about the Masters in
Accountancy, arguing that ‘foundations are so critical in this field; in some disci-
plines the foundations are not that critical as long as you can think—— if you
haven’t read certain literature you could read it up if you had the intellectual
ability to do it—— but in these disciplines it would be like putting up the roof
without the foundations’. We had anticipated this, because the knowledge bases
that these programmes draw on are likely to be economics and mathematics
which require ‘explicit, formally articulated concepts, relations and procedures’
to be in place (Bernstein, 1996, p. 174).
However, this cannot be a hard-and-fast rule because the interviewee also
emphasised how well some students who have an undergraduate background in
engineering or music do on the Postgraduate Diploma in Accountancy. Echoing
interviewees from science and engineering, experiential knowledge was generally
seen as valuable within programmes, enabling students ‘to contextualise’, but
‘not sufficient on its own’ to guarantee success at postgraduate level.
In contrast, and as we predicted, fourth-generation professional programmes,
especially those closer to practice or with a strong contextual curricular logic, such
as the Postgraduate Diploma in Management Practice and the Masters in Informa-
tion Systems, were seen as ‘tailor-made for RPL’. In these programmes the inter-
viewee reported that ‘we take all graduates’ because these programmes are
‘business rather than technical disciplines’.
6
However, taking graduates from
across disciplines means that admissions processes need to rely on proxies such as
general cognitive abilities and academic literacies rather than on specific content;
this introduces problems of its own, for example how to define ‘graduateness’:
To me, postgraduate means you are progressing from a series of
outcomes—— so how do I know they have been achieved? What minimum
outcomes are needed to proceed to a specific postgraduate diploma? How
am I to measure them?
The Masters in Information Systems is an interesting case because the faculty
representative referred to it being taught differently as a full-time and a
part-time course because ‘the students have different backgrounds’. This sug-
EXPLORING THE ‘KNOWLEDGE QUESTION’ 9
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
gests the role of pedagogic agency in curricular accessibility—— in other words,
the educator always has a certain amount of space within which to be creative in
curriculum design and delivery, and this can be used to enhance accessibility.
Even though the programme is already relatively accessible to RPL because it is
a ‘business’ rather than a ‘technical’ discipline, it can be made even more acces-
sible through accommodation to students’ backgrounds.
Health and Rehabilitation Sciences: role of professional bodies and contextual
imperatives
There is an extremely wide variety of programmes in the Faculty of Health Sci-
ences. We anticipated that RPL would be most feasible in programmes such as
Audiology and Occupational Therapy because although they draw on hierarchi-
cal knowledge structures, they are professional programmes that are relatively
close to practice, presumably easing access for those with work experience in
the field. Notwithstanding this the interviewee, referring to programmes offered
at undergraduate rather than postgraduate level, refuted our hypothesis by say-
ing: ‘professional programmes are more restrictive—— the entry requirements will
tell you straight away that if you’re not a qualified this or that, you won’t get in’.
Here we see the regulatory role of professional bodies in the recontextualisation
process. Another reason given for the low feasibility of RPL in these pro-
grammes was the high demand for places, lack of institutional capacity and scar-
city of jobs: ‘there is already such a big demand from people who do meet the
criteria … it would be very hard to compete with [school leavers] for entry,
that’s part of our struggle’ and ‘there is a huge need out there in terms of the
service but there are not enough posts, that’s where the trouble is’.
This suggests that a range of social and contextual imperatives also impact on
accessibility; these can enhance as well as restrict access. One example of
enhancement is where the nursing professional body has increased its qualifica-
tions requirements in a field where most practitioners have historically only had
an initial diploma. Because of these policy changes, the Postgraduate Diploma/
Masters in Nursing programme at this institution routinely accepts ‘between
80% and 90%’ of applicants who do not have a first degree. According to a lead-
ing academic in this programme, ‘when we talk about RPL it’s our standard’,
and ‘for us, it has just been so much part of what we do that we don’t really
think about it as RPL.’
A further example is the Postgraduate Diploma/Masters in Disability Studies.
Although housed in the Faculty of Health Sciences, the curriculum draws largely
on horizontal knowledge structures in the social sciences (such as sociology, crit-
ical theory and policy studies). It is a programme designed not only to widen
access but also to transform a knowledge field historically dominated by a bio-
medical model of disability (see Cooper, 2011):
[n]ot transformation in one way but in many ways—— part of that was ‘what
do you want in the programme?’ and ‘who do you want in the pro-
gramme?’ And who we wanted was a range of people who together would
make new knowledge and get to new places, especially those who had not
been through the academic route.
10 LINDA COOPER AND JUDY HARRIS
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
As a result, this programme has very flexible entry criteria, accepting applicants
from across Africa on the basis of their ‘ideas’, ‘potential to develop’ and
‘holding high-level jobs’ in the disability field. The programmes are particularly
welcoming of the experiential knowledge of disability activists: ‘we look for
someone rich in experience, someone who is intellectual, who is able to think,
talk, debate, reflect at a point that is beyond the everyday’; ‘it’s one of the privi-
leges we have—— of being constantly in contact with people who bring their
experience to an academic environment … without that our whole programme
would be bland … without reality to make it alive’.
In this programme, experiential knowledge is seen as providing a basis for
the production of new knowledge in dialogue with formal, codified knowledge.
As an interdisciplinary programme with no obvious disciplinary taproot, there is
no clear, prerequisite conceptual or content knowledge to use for RPL purposes.
There is, as we hypothesised, a concomitant reliance on proxies such as general
cognitive abilities and academic literacies to gauge suitability for access via RPL.
In this case, the proxies are shifted towards particular kinds of activism and
intellectual abilities with the potential to ‘make a difference’ in the disability
field.
This programme is illustrative of the degree to which pedagogic agency exer-
cised in the process of curriculum design can act to widen accessibility.
Humanities I: Historical Studies—— a traditional discipline with potential for
pedagogic agency
The Faculty of Humanities is home to programmes in the arts and social
sciences and houses a number of professional programmes that draw from the
arts and social sciences in various combinations.
We anticipated that the postgraduate Historical Studies programme would
not be very amenable to RPL because History is strongly classified by virtue of
its specialised methodological practices and this particular programme is
research-focused rather than professionally oriented. This was confirmed to
some extent by the interviewee: ‘despite the fact that there is a public percep-
tion that this [i.e. history] is something that people can do outside of the uni-
versity’, in practice, ‘it is very difficult for people with no formal undergraduate
training in History to come onto a postgraduate course’. The ‘training’ he
referred to involves ‘an attitude of mind rather than covering content’ and ‘an
awareness of the arguments and the approaches and theories’ in the discipline.
He saw History and Historical Studies as a way of thinking and as a particular
mode of enquiry: ‘they [postgraduate students] need to have learnt the way that
one works with material and argues and presents material’. These modes of
thinking and enquiring share characteristics with other social sciences, such that:
‘someone with sociology is ideally suited to doing research in our department’
and conversely ‘a hard science background can be a barrier’.
Despite knowledge-related issues and requirements, the academic concerned
was extremely well-disposed to RPL for personal, equity and institutional capac-
ity reasons: ‘it relates to the slightly anarchic tendency within me’; ‘the whole
process of broadening access to education is exceptionally important in the con-
text of our country where people lacked access’, and ‘we are in an area where
EXPLORING THE ‘KNOWLEDGE QUESTION’ 11
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
we actually want to encourage this kind of thing because we don’t have floods
of undergraduate students who are going on to do research’. Experiential
knowledge was seen as important and valuable: ‘People, especially in this
context, have such rich life experience that they come in with. So, we are really
cutting off our noses if we are ignoring that’. Particular reference was made to
students of the 1980s
7
whose experiential knowledge was the ‘fire in their
bellies’ situated at the nexus of politics, political theory and lived experience.
Once again, the personal disposition of the academic who is able to exercise
pedagogic agency through curriculum design could potentially render this
programme more open than its knowledge base suggests. However, as in other
faculties, this is not enough on its own for successful postgraduate study. What
is required of RPL candidates is a mix of ‘training’ and certain dispositions such
as ‘open-minded to learn’, ‘mission and drive’.
Humanities II: Film and Media Studies—— a fourth-generation professional
programme
We anticipated that the postgraduate programme in Film and Media Studies
would be open to RPL on account of its lack of any obvious disciplinary taproot.
This was confirmed by the interviewee: ‘people from a wide range of back-
grounds can come in ... it is interdisciplinary and rich in terms of the mix of
inputs it considers valuable’; ‘we want bright lawyers or doctors or accountants
who suddenly decide that they really want to tell a story’; I’d rather have a smart
business student or a smart philosophy student, than a dull media student’.
Thus, the curriculum derived from a very weakly bounded knowledge region cre-
ates the space for perspectives and concepts from a wide range of disciplines.
Given the absence of a discipline-specific conceptual load, we hypothesised
that there would be a reliance on proxies to gauge suitability for access. This
was the case up to a point, but the proxies were not as we expected. Although
there was concern with general cognitive abilities i.e. ‘strong analytical and intel-
lectual focuses’ from a range of disciplines, there was also emphasis on industry
(experiential) knowledge, and dispositions such as ‘passion’ and ‘maturity’ and
ideas, ‘insights’ and ‘having something interesting to say’.
Experiential knowledge is highly valued because it is the film and media
industry rather than the university that is the site of cutting-edge knowledge pro-
duction. This was borne out by reference to the presence of students with indus-
try experience in the class: ‘when they [the students with industry experience]
are in the room, I can see that other students look at them—— if they find some-
thing interesting, the full-time [traditional] students look at them and think
“OK, this is useful”’. Nevertheless, the academic interviewed emphasised that it
is not a ‘practical course’:
It’s wrong to call ... [the programme] practical. We are not looking at
camera jobs; we are looking at people who can tell a story, who can write
about it, and who can do research. There’s got to be a strong research
element ... we’re not a Film School.
12 LINDA COOPER AND JUDY HARRIS
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
What we see here is a fourth-generation professional programme that strength-
ens its academic base by utilising perspectives and concepts from other
disciplines whilst also creating space for experiential knowledge, ideas and
dispositions. This creates synergies:
I think the RPL students offer a lot because they come from a different
intellectual background e.g. Business with its spreadsheets and market
analysis; or they come from a Fine Art background and understand
graphics and so on. I think that adds to the mix—— you get interchange.
There is both space to exercise agency and the will to engage with RPL in this
context: ‘increasingly, we are going to face the problem of students who are
bright, promising, passionate, but haven’t had the advantage and possibility at
their [undergraduate] university. So we might have to put them through some
sort of prior training e.g. run a short, intensive course in the holiday which they
can do. When they graduate from that, we’ll look at them again’. Despite having
experienced problems regarding RPL decisions being approved at a departmen-
tal level, but rejected at a faculty level, the approach of this academic represents
a pragmatic and positive strategy that acknowledges that gaps as well as affor-
dances have to be addressed through RPL.
Tussles with faculty or departmental management have not always resulted in
a positive response, however, as can be seen in the following example.
Humanities III: Education Studies—— influence of departmental and faculty
culture
We hypothesised that the Masters in Education would be open to the idea of
RPL because although it is a traditional profession, it draws on horizontal knowl-
edge structures such as psychology and sociology and it is oriented to practice.
The experiences of one of the programme ‘stream leaders’ of attempting to
implement RPL illustrates how and why our hypothesis did not hold in this
instance.
The Technology in Education stream is a recent addition to the Masters in
Education. With no clear disciplinary taproot, it is actually a fourth-generation
professional programme with a high level of proximity to the point of applica-
tion. As was the case in Film and Media, it is the ICT industry rather than the
academic discipline that leads in knowledge production. Because of this, the
interviewee viewed experiential knowledge as very important both prior to and
within the programme: ‘their experience is valuable to the class, and drawing on
this increases their comfort; I welcome their comments, invite them to talk
about their experience so that it becomes useful’. In the absence of specified
qualification requirements or generally accepted graduate-level academic abili-
ties, the criteria in use for access revolve around assessing potential to succeed,
plus dispositional attributes such as ‘the ability to feel open to unlearning’,
‘capacity to change and accommodate new things’, ‘personal position’ and ‘flex-
ibility of reflection’.
Despite evidence of success on the part of students admitted via RPL, the
interviewee had concluded that, ‘it’s a waste of time—— if I’ve got an option, it
EXPLORING THE ‘KNOWLEDGE QUESTION’ 13
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
[i.e. RPL] is the last thing I want to do!’ He related a number of bruising
encounters where his RPL decisions had been seriously questioned or over-
turned by departmental management. How can this be explained?
The reason for this may lie in the particular history and culture of this
department, and the orientation of postgraduate faculty management. Although
the Masters in Education seemed to us to be highly amenable to RPL for knowl-
edge reasons, this department has been concerned to ensure that the pro-
gramme is research-focused rather than practice-oriented. RPL is viewed as
weakening the discipline’s already weak boundaries, as undermining academic
rigour and as increasing the vulnerability of the programme in the university
context. A senior academic with responsibility for admissions to the programme
disputed the validity of proxies to gauge suitability for access via RPL, and
deemed it virtually impossible for RPL candidates to have acquired general cog-
nitive abilities, intellectual skills or academic literacies outside of a prescribed
university context. He claimed they have not spent enough time in academia to
be able to ‘judge the conflicts in the field’ or entertain a range of differing per-
spectives; they lack the ability to analyse ‘reading material or establish a position
based on arguments from the [academic] field’, and ‘bomb out completely
when it comes to research’.
What we see here is the degree to which critical attitudes towards RPL com-
bined with a departmental culture that desires to strengthen the conceptual
logic and the knowledge base of a programme can lead to stronger maintenance
of boundaries and the consequent exclusion of candidates seeking access on the
basis of RPL.
Summary of findings
We found as many, if not more, divergences from our original hypotheses as
congruence with them. As noted earlier, both are interesting: convergences offer
more nuanced detail about where and why RPL is easy or difficult to implement;
divergences provide evidence that knowledge and knowledge structures do not
impact in a deterministic way on the feasibility of RPL in relation to a particular
programme.
In terms of congruence, our hypothesis about proximity to the point of appli-
cation being an ‘affordance’ for RPL held: the Faculty of Science noted the
potential for expansion of RPL in interdisciplinary and professional programmes
with a contextual curricular logic. In the Commerce Faculty we found that tradi-
tional professional programmes tended to rely more on discipline-specific con-
cepts than fourth-generation programmes. As a singular, Historical Studies did
require a particular and discipline-specific orientation, although the exercise of
pedagogic agency made RPL more possible.
In terms of divergences, the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Engineer-
ing and Built Environment placed less emphasis on discipline-specific concepts
than we anticipated. Our hypothesis that there would be a reliance on proxies
such as general cognitive abilities, academic literacies and learner dispositions in
professional programmes drawing from horizontal knowledge structures held
firm in Disability Studies and Film and Media Studies (to some extent), but not
in Education Studies. Moreover, the nature of the proxies was more complex
14 LINDA COOPER AND JUDY HARRIS
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
than we anticipated (for example, greater emphasis on a very wide range of dis-
positions).
Although professional programmes drawing from the social sciences might be
more conducive to RPL on knowledge grounds, their very lack of explicit, identi-
fiable access criteria makes it hard to determine what is actually required,
including by way of proxies. In some quarters of this institution, this sets up a
need for excessive vigilance. Conversely, in professional programmes drawing on
the hard sciences, it is sometimes easier to make decisions about RPL because
there are clearer knowledge bases that everyone accepts (often quite tacitly).
Although these decisions can lead to higher levels of exclusion, this is by no
means always the case; nor is it the case that conceptual foundations are always
more important in these programmes than in the social sciences. Whether in
the hard sciences, or in the social sciences, the interdisciplinary nature of many
postgraduate programmes makes it impossible to pre-specify knowledge require-
ments for RPL purposes because there is no defined disciplinary taproot.
Experiential, workplace knowledge was generally valued across programmes
and disciplines, and there was quite significant evidence of experiential knowl-
edge being drawn upon as standard pedagogic practice within curricula: to con-
textualise formal knowledge; to critique formal knowledge;
to enrich both formal and experiential knowledge, and to produce new
knowledge.
Conclusions and implications of the study
This article has explored the ‘knowledge question’ in RPL through the research
question: To what extent does the nature of the disciplinary or knowledge
domain into which RPL candidates seek access determine the feasibility of RPL?
We were concerned with why the uptake of RPL within higher education has
been so restricted and were interested in whether this was for knowledge/episte-
mological reasons or due to other factors such as lack of political will or rejec-
tion of forms of knowledge that academics cannot immediately recognise.
Our findings confirmed arguments that knowledge structure does affect the
feasibility of RPL, but with a number of important qualifications. First, knowl-
edge and knowledge differentiation are not as important determinants of post-
graduate level RPL as we anticipated they might be. Just as important is the
question of pedagogic agency. Individual academics who are committed to open-
ing up pathways of learning for those historically excluded from higher educa-
tion can play a role in designing diverse pedagogic interventions that are
appropriate to purpose and innovative in form. The creative ways in which this
can be done has been investigated in a further piece of research within this
institution, and is elaborated on more fully in Cooper and Harris (2011). The
converse is also true: academics and managers opposed to RPL on epistemologi-
cal or pedagogical grounds may act as powerful gatekeepers in relation to access
by those whose knowledge bases are primarily experiential and/or work-based.
Second, the research showed that knowledge is as much about cultural and
institutional practices as it is about conceptual hierarchies. These cultural prac-
tices translate into distinct organisational environments within which RPL has to
EXPLORING THE ‘KNOWLEDGE QUESTION’ 15
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
take place and which play a significant role in offering affordances or barriers to
pedagogic agency and the implementation of RPL.
Knowledge is therefore one factor among many. It is important, but so are
academics who exercise varying degrees of pedagogic agency; particular interpre-
tations of the institutional RPL policy; artefacts such as roadmaps; faculty
culture, size, space and capacity; the role of professional bodies; perceptions of
whether (or not) there is a talent pool ‘out there’; the constituency that was in
mind when the programme was originally designed; extent of demand from
traditional entrants; perceptions of the needs in society and economy (equity
concerns); and the historical moment (students in the 1980s with ‘fire in the
belly’).
It follows that RPL cannot be reducible to ‘one size fits all’, but needs to
assume different forms in different institutional and disciplinary settings. RPL
for access to postgraduate study in a university will vary according to the purpose
and design of the programme to which the RPL candidate is seeking access.
This supports the position (see Ralphs, 2009) that RPL should be seen as a spec-
ialised pedagogical practice that provides tools for navigating access to new
learning opportunities across diverse learning contexts. It also suggests that in
the absence of direct articulation between knowledge forms, access need not
necessarily be denied as the pedagogy embedded in the process of RPL may
enable the bridging of gaps.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to SAQA for the funding of the broader research project and to our
RPL research colleagues: Alan Ralphs, Kessie Moodley, Karen Deller and
Barbara Jones.
Notes
1. It draws on a conference paper presented to the 7th International Researching Work and Learn-
ing Conference (Cooper & Harris, 2011).
2. Although as Breier (2011) notes, there has been an absence of recent large-scale studies to audit
the exact nature and extent of implementation.
3. The other sites are: RPL for access to undergraduate study; a work-integrated model of RPL for
employees seeking a qualification in business studies; and RPL at a trade union college linked to
a university.
4. Anonymity is not fully achieved in this article as it was felt necessary to provide readers with an
appreciation of the diversity of interviewees’ disciplines.
5. Our research still needs to investigate actual curricula through the establishment of more rigorous
relationships between theoretical concepts and empirical referents.
6. The distinction between ‘business’ and ‘technical’ is interesting, with various additional terms
attached to each. ‘Business’ was also referred to as ‘adult education style’, ‘holistic’ and as being
based on ‘academic abilities’. ‘Technical’ was referred to in terms of ‘technical knowledge’, ‘the
discipline’ and ‘detailed content’.
7. He was referring here to the many students who were also involved in political activism at this
time.
16 LINDA COOPER AND JUDY HARRIS
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
References
Andersson, P., & Guo, S. (2009). Governing through non/recognition: The missing ‘R’ in the PLAR
for immigrant professionals in Canada and Sweden. International Journal of Lifelong Education,
28, 423–237.
Andersson, P., & Harris, J. (eds.). (2006). Retheorising RPL. Leicester: NIACE Publishers.
Armsby, P., Costley, C., & Garnett, J. (2006). The legitimation of knowledge: A work-based learning
perspective of APEL. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 25, 369–383.
Bernstein, B. (1996). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique. London: Taylor and
Francis.
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique (2nd edn). Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Boud, D., Cohen, R., & Walker, D. (eds.). (1993). Using experience for learning. Buckingham: Society
for Research into Higher Education.
Breier, M. (2003). The recruitment and recognition of prior informal experience in the pedagogy of
two university courses in labour law. PhD thesis, University of Cape Town.
Breier, M. (2006). A disciplinary-specific approach to the recognition of prior informal experience in
adult pedagogy: ‘rpl’ as opposed to ‘RPL’. In P. Andersson & J. Harris (eds.), Re-theorising the
recognition of prior learning (pp. 77–96). Leicester: NIACE.
Breier, M. (2011). South Africa: Research reflecting critically on Recognition of Prior Learning
(RPL) research and practice. In J. Harris, M. Breier, & C. Wihak (eds.), Researching the recogni-
tion of prior learning: International perspectives. Leicester: NIACE Publishers.
Breier, M., & Burness, A. (2003). The implementation of recognition of prior learning at universities and tech-
nikons in South Africa 2003: Draft Report on research commissioned by the Joint Education Trust. Bell-
ville: CACE University of the Western Cape.
Cooper, L. (2006). ‘Tools of Mediation’: An historical–cultural approach to RPL. In P. Anderson &
J. Harris (eds.), Retheorising RPL (pp. 221–240). Leicester: NIACE Publishers.
Cooper, L. (2011). ‘Activists within the Academy’: The role of prior experience in adult learners’
acquisition of postgraduate literacies in a post-apartheid South African university. Adult Educa-
tion Quarterly, 61, 40–56.
Cooper, L., & Harris, J. (2011). Recognition of prior learning: Exploring the ‘knowledge question’. Paper pre-
sented to 7th International Conference on Research Work & Learning, Shanghai, 4–7 Decem-
ber.
Gamble, J. (2009). The relation between knowledge and practice in curriculum and assessment.
Revised version of a concept paper prepared for Umalusi in 2009. October.
Harris, J. (2000). RPL: Power pedagogy and possibility. Pretoria: HSRC.
Harris, J.A. (2004). The hidden curriculum of the recognition of prior learning: A case study.
Unpublished PhD thesis, Open University.
Harris, J. (2006). Questions of knowledge and curriculum in the recognition of prior learning. In
P. Anderson & J. Harris (eds.), Retheorising RPL (pp. 51–76). Leicester: NIACE.
Harris, J., Breier, M., & Wihak, C. (eds.). (2011). Researching the recognition of prior learning: Interna-
tional perspectives. Leicester: NIACE.
Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Kraak, A. (2004). Training policies under late apartheid: The historical imprint of a low skills regime.
In S. McGrath, A. Badroodien, A. Kraak, & L. Unwin (eds.), Shifting understandings of skills in
South Africa: Overcoming the historical imprint of a low skills regime (pp. 46–70). Cape Town: HSRC
Press.
Michelson, E. (1996). Usual suspects: Experience, reflection and the engendering of knowledge.
International Journal of Lifelong Education, 15, 438–353.
Michelson, E. (2004). Internal memorandum on research conducted at UCT.
Michelson, E. (2006). Beyond Galileo’s telescope: Situated knowledge and the recognition of prior
learning. In P. Andersson & J. Harris (eds.), Re-theorising the recognition of prior learning (pp.
141–162). Leicester: NIACE.
Muller, J. (2008). In search of coherence: A conceptual guide to curriculum planning for compre-
hensive universities. Report prepared for the SANTED Project, Centre for Education Policy
Development, January.
Peters, H. (2000). Report on research into the Recognition of Prior Learning at the University of
Cape Town. June.
Ralphs, A. (2009). A research proposal: Specialised pedagogy: A comparative study of RPL practices
within the changing landscape of the NQF in South Africa. February.
Shalem, Y., & Steinberg, C. (2006). Portfolio-based assessment of prior learning: A cat and mouse
chase after invisible criteria. In P. Andersson & J. Harris (eds.), Re-theorising the recognition of
prior learning (pp. 97–116). Leicester: NIACE.
EXPLORING THE ‘KNOWLEDGE QUESTION’ 17
Downloaded by [University of Cape Town Libraries] at 02:18 22 April 2013
