Prior Learning Assessment is based on these assumptions:
- Adult students have a variety of life experiences.
- Those life experiences can (but do not always) result in learning that is equivalent to college level learning.
- Within reasonable limits, such learning has an appropriate place in a college curriculum.
- Some, but not all, students can articulate and document the college-level learning they have gained through their life experiences.
- Adults' learning, not experience, can be reliably assessed to determine whether credit can be appropriately awarded.
Prior Learning Assessment does not award credit for experience. It does award credit for verifiable learning (whether skills or knowledge) gained from volunteer, work, or other life experiences. For instance, if you have worked as an accounts clerk for 10 years, you will not receive credit for 10 years of office experience (which a prospective employer would certainly value). In fact, you may have only one year of actual learning and nine years of rote performance. Conversely, you may have been learning and growing all along. You will receive credit only if you can adequately describe and document what you have learned. Your period Learning Assessment Portfolio, including how effectively you describe your learning and how thoroughly you document it, will determine how much credit you will receive.
For more information, please read the full Prior Learning Assessment Handbook.