h CURRENT CHALLENGES IN VALIDATION OF INFORMAL LEARNING (VINFL) IN EUROPE

What are the political origins of VINFL in Europe? What is the current debate and which challenges can be identified in the field of VINFL? In this reflective paper the authors critically evaluate the issue and plead for a recognition of competences, which differentiates between validation as a concept and validation as a process. Validation as a process covers the appreciation of learning in everyday situations and people's life experience. Reliable validation tools would then support individual professional development and mobility by making these learning processes creditable for future education, training and employment paths. They conclude that today there is a strong need to look at the VINFL's potential to take into account, to identify, and to identify individual knowledge, skills and competences, and also to regard it as a comprehensive tool to integrate the different learning pathways; because VINFL is a way not only to motivate adults and attract them into continuous lifelong learning by helping them to become more aware of their level of skills and competencies, of their capabilities and their potential and to have a better grasp of the benefits of learning. (C) 2017 Published by Future Academy www. FutureAcademy. org. uk