Youthpass: More than a Certificate
Since November 2007, thirty thousand young people in Europe have received Youthpass as recognition of their learning in the ‘Youth in Action’ Programme. ‘Youth in Action’ is the programme that the European Union set up for young people and aims to inspire a sense of active European citizenship, solidarity, and tolerance among young Europeans and to involve them in shaping the future of the Union. It involves Youth Exchanges, European Voluntary Service, Youth Democracy Projects, training, and other activities.
Since 2007, all participants of activities within the ‘Youth in Action’ Programme have the right to receive Youthpass. On the certificate a description of the activity can be found, including the different programme elements. The last part of Youthpass describes the learning outcomes of the individual participant. The participant fills in this part through self-assessment supported by a dialogue process with the mentor or trainer.
Making learning explicit
Youthpass has been developed to improve the recognition and validation of non-formal learning in the ‘Youth in Action’ Programme. For people involved in the programme it has been clear that young people learn a lot when, for instance, spending a year working as a volunteer in another country. But how to make ‘a lot’ understood and recognised by others? Youthpass wants to make the learning more explicit. By using Youthpass, young people have the possibility to be more specific about what they learned and in what way they learned. On the one hand to show others more clearly what the learning outcomes were, on the other to make themselves more aware of their learning.
Lifelong Learning
Youthpass should also be seen as part of the Lifelong Learning strategy of the European Commission. A strategy that means a shift in our perception of education in Europe from just passing on knowledge to developing broader competences that equip young people for adult life and further learning. In Lifelong Learning the learner takes responsibility for their learning. This means different approaches to organising learning and new competences from everyone involved in education.
Lifelong Learning also takes into account all the learning that takes place outside formal education. Formal, non-formal, and informal learning are seen as complementary in this respect. There, the youth field, as one of the main providers of non-formal learning, has an important role to play. Competences acquired in the youth field contribute at a very fundamental level to personal fulfilment, active participation, employability, and the social integration of young people. Youthpass is an instrument that makes these competences visible.
The two year experience with Youthpass plus one year of test phases is too short a time to give a real assessment of the impact and results. Research on that is planned for the coming two years. But there is already some conclusions that can be drawn from the experiences till now.
Welcomed by the field
An important element that has contributed to the success is the enthusiasm in the field for Youthpass. The initial expectation was that there would be a lot of resistance coming from the youth work field towards an instrument that would ‘formalise’ non-formal education. Although there is of course critical reflections, the overall response is very positive. The need for more recognition in the field corresponds well with the introduction of Youthpass. But even more important is the enthusiasm of the young people who received Youhtpass. Many young people see the certificate as an extra added value to their experience in their project. Especially those young people who did not manage to get certificates during their school life appreciate an official document that states their competences.
Focus on learning
‘Youthpass is more than a certificate’ is probably the sentence that was said most frequently in the last two years in meetings and training courses around the topic. It is not that, since the introduction of Youthpass, the only thing that has changed in activities in the ‘Youth in Action’ Programme is that there is a certificate at the end of the project. Youthpass, or better the Youthpass process, implies a strong focus on the awareness of learning in the activities. When young people have to assess their learning outcomes at the end of the project, they need time and support during the activity to reflect regularly on their learning. Not only on seeing what you learned during that day or week but also reflecting on how you learn best, on what you find challenging, on how to continue and on what to focus. A challenging task, because till now others (teachers) have mostly decided on how and what you had to learn and when you fulfilled your learning. Young people are very willing to take their learning into their own hands, but need support from facilitators (youth workers, trainers, and mentors) to fulfil this new role.
Never before so much time has been spend in the ‘Youth in Action’ Programme activities on talking with the participants about the topic ‘how do I learn?’.
Recognition of the youth sector
In 2006, the Council of the European Union signed a resolution on the recognition of the value of non-formal and informal learning within the European youth field. On the one hand an important resolution for the youth sector, but on the other hand a resolution as such does not make you recognised. Youthpass fits of course very well into the idea of this resolution and can be seen as one of the instruments to put it into practice. At the same time another phenomenon takes place, being a result of the fact that Youthpass is the only European certificate of its kind at the moment. Which makes Youthpass a kind of pilot project in the wider frame of the Lifelong Learning strategy of the Commission and as such an interesting development for others in the educational field to follow. Organisations and institutes working in the frame of the ‘Youth in Action’ Programme get and take more and more a role in the debates on educational policies, both at European and at national level.
Challenges
To implement an instrument as Youthpass at European level takes time. With two years it is still a project under construction, and there is still many challenges ahead. In the first two years a lot of energy had to be spend on the technical realisation and implementation of the instrument. That part is done now, and all attention can go now to the two main aspects to be tackled further: recognition of Youthpass and the educational implications.
In the test phase, employers were interviewed on their opinion on such an instrument. The reactions were quite positive. The task is now to make Youthpass known as a valuable certificate among a wider audience of employers. A task that has to be taken up mainly at national level by the National Agencies for the ‘Youth in Action’ Programme. When recognition leads to employability, the value of Youthpass will certainly increase.
Within the ‘Youth in Action’ Programme a big effort is made at the moment to develop methods, tools, and instruments that can support young people in developing their learning competence. It is an interesting and even exciting process that contributes at the same time to the quality improvement of the educational work done in the programme.
With Youthpass the ‘Youth in Action’ Programme is in the unique position of exploring possibilities and challenges in new concepts of education.
