STRATEGIES, DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF VPL - PRACTICES IN SIBERIAN FEDERAL UNIVERSITY: MULTICULTURAL CONTEXT

Modernization of education in the Russian Federation highlights the significance of complex evaluation of educational outcomes, both personal and professional experience of students. In response to such challenges traditional methods of the interim and final evaluation of students, graduates (tests, exams, essays, etc.), as well as different types of CVs requested by employers from candidates, could hardly provide comprehensive information to the fullest extent for appropriate assessment of the entire spectrum of personal and professional competencies and skills that are required for a decision making in a particular case. The problem of personalized comprehensive assessment take on a new significance and seem more pressing in terms of geographical and occupational mobility, that are typical of many multicultural regions of the Russian Federation, including Krasnoyarsk Territory.

School of Education, Psychology and Sociology of Siberian Federal University (SEPS, SibFU) has been a part of international project TEMPUS “ALLMEET” [1] which was started in 2013 and has been implemented by five Russian and three European universities, the European Centre for Validation of Prior Learning (EC-VPL, the Netherlands), the Institute of Vocational Education Pedagogy and Psychology RW and youth public organization "Volunteer" "(Kazan).

In the framework of the projects of professional mobility and sharing best practices the SEPS, SibFU team participated in two stages of the international EC-VPL – initiated training center events. One of the major outcomes of the training has materialized into implementation of innovative VPL practices in educational and professional Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes including the operation of Multicultural Centre for Lifelong Learning based on personal training services.

Today long life learning and wide circulation of adaptive learning approaches applied by universities contribute to competitiveness of their graduates on the job market worldwide.

Validation of Prior Learning (VPL) aims to provide opportunities for planning individual path for the sake of personal development. VPL key technologies for assessment and validation of personal competences within the social-economic context are e-portfolios, interviews, STARRT-method, case method, simulations.

It should be noted that the VPL assessment has been successfully tested and blended into information-educational environment of SEPS SibFU on the example of e-portfolios and STARRT-method in training undergraduate and graduate students majoring in Education.
In 2015 a Multicultural Centre for Lifelong Learning based on personal training services was established in SEPS, SibFU within the framework of the TEMPUS project “ALLMEET”.

Thus, the system implementation of VPL validation of educational outcomes of students at various levels of training, validation of their personal and professional experience for employment purposes or other competence-relevant events considered in the framework of the multicultural center-based personal training services SEPPS , provide a solution to problems related, first of all, with the formation of the open University and multicultural educational environment for all stakeholders in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

References:
[1] Project TEMPUS ALLMEET № 544480-TEMPUS-1-2013-1-IT-TEMPUS-YPHES “Actions Of Lifelong Learning Addressing Multicultural Education and Tolerance in Russia” (2013-2016)