New framework from University’s learning innovation academic goes international

A University of Huddersfield academic is working with organisations in the US and Australia using a new Universal Micro-credential Framework he co-developed to help revolutionise education and employment.

Professor of Learning Innovation at the University of Huddersfield, Rupert Ward has been promoting the unique framework internationally and is in talks to run a pilot scheme with Jobs and Skills Australia, who advise the Australian Government on the country’s workforce needs.

He has also been working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), George Washington University and the University of Colorado Boulder - all in the US, as well as the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Professor Ward’s Universal Micro-credential Framework provides a mechanism by which granular achievements in both education and employment can be recognised and integrated into traditional qualifications and employment requirements. It also supports a more detailed, inclusive and flexible approach to recognising and differentiating performance.

During his visits to the US and Australia, Professor Ward has been presenting the framework and its potential to revolutionise education and employment ecosystems, so that his work can be adopted.

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Professor Ward, who is currently on a secondment at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, said: “Traditionally there has been a fundamental disconnect between the capabilities taught within education and the competencies sought in employment.

“This Capability-Competency Chasm has profound implications for identifying and supporting learner-earners to achieve their full potential. A structural solution has been developed through the use of skills profiling, which opens up exciting opportunities to personalise our learner-earner journeys with more bespoke educational activities and better aligned career development.

“In order to maximise these opportunities within higher education a Universal Micro-credential Framework has been developed which enables badges and micro-credentials to seamlessly connect traditional qualifications to employment whilst simultaneously enabling more granular individualised learning and assessment.

“With these approaches we are able to revolutionise how education and employment connect and therefore realise personalised life-long and life-wide learning and earning which better meets the needs of learners, educational institutions, employers and society.”

The Universal Micro-credential Framework follows on from Professor Ward’s book Personalised Learning for the Learning Person, which was published in 2020, and calls for a radical overhaul in education that embraces digital technology to deliver specialised learning.

In 2015 he undertook an 18-month secondment at Buckingham Palace, where he was Project Lead for iDEA – Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award – a free online programme that develops digital, enterprise and employability skills and is now one of the world’s most successful digital badging solutions.