Accreditation & Recognition of Prior Experience & Learning for Entrepreneurship (ARPEL4Entrep)

This project, Accreditation & Recognition of Prior Experience & Learning for Entrepreneurship (ARPEL4Entrep) was launched in September 2020. The project partners are Advenio eAcademy (Malta), University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy), University of Ioannina (Greece), University of Zilina (Slovakia), Vilnius University (Lithuania), AllSecure Ltd -eBusiness Systems (Malta) and EUCEN European University Continuing Education Network (Belgium). The scope of the project is to leverage the infrastructure and competencies of the partners in e-learning and the collective expertise and resources of the partners in creating a programme which would encourage entrepreneurs to accredit and recognise their prior experience and learning as part of a Bachelors degree in Entrepreneurship. The programme would provide a structured manner in such frameworks can be integrated with innovative online coursework to enable participants to earn the required 180 ECTS credits at Level 6.

The first stage of this project requires the partners to carry out a research study based on two research element. The first part will be a secondary, desk-research to collect data on best practices of Recognition of Prior Learning policies from the home countries and to collect data on the home countries’ legal and regulatory position with regards to accreditation and validation of prior experiential learning. The second part of the research includes a primary research study directed to entrepreneurs to identify the core competences and skills required to be successful in the entrepreneurial journey. The skills and competence will be analysed on the basis of personal related skills and work-related skills. The results from this research study will be the basis for the development of the ARPEL frameowrok which will be included as part of a Bachelors degree in Entrepreneurship.

Following the design and development of the programme, this project will also include the recruitment of suitable candidates by the various participating partners to the proposed ARPEL Pilot Programme commencing in October 2021. This will be run over a twenty-month period. Their progress on this programme will be carefully analysed to check for any system modifications which may be required to ensure the effectiveness of the Programme. A three month period for post programme evaluations and reporting is included as an integral part of the implementation process.

More information here.