Welcome back to The Co-Lab Brief. In Volume 2, we’re taking a look at the world of microcredentials and how institutions and countries are approaching the space. If you missed Volume 1 on the impact of artificial intelligence in higher education, you can read and respond to the edition here.
The Co-Lab Brief is intended to be a dialogue, which means we want to hear from you on what you think about the topics we’re exploring. You can also share trends, insights and other experiences that will be featured in upcoming editions by visiting our site.
How do you build a credentialing ecosystem that serves society, not just institutions? Is regional coordination the missing architecture of global credentialing?
Building Credentialing Ecosystems That Serve Society
For much of their history, universities have prioritized degree-seeking learners, building systems around certificates and postgraduate study. Yet today, societies need more: individuals changing careers, workers seeking to upskill, and those unable or unwilling to pursue a degree but still requiring meaningful credentials. Microcredentials have emerged as one response, and more than half of higher education leaders worldwide are now integrating them into their institutions.
UNESCO defines microcredentials as short, targeted learning outcomes that may be offered by universities, industries, and community organizations. Their brevity and adaptability make them powerful tools for access — but when developed in isolation, they often remain bounded within a single institution or labor market. For rural or marginalized learners, especially, this lack of recognition across borders and sectors can render their efforts invisible.
That is why countries in the Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America are moving toward national and regional frameworks that enable portability, comparability, and trust. These coordinated systems transform local innovation into validated pathways: learners gain credentials that translate into work, employers access reliable signals of skill, and societies close gaps that fragmented systems cannot. By working within these frameworks, universities can expand their impact — whether by enabling rural learners in the Philippines to access nationally recognized credentials or by supporting Pacific island institutions in creating programs that carry value across borders.
Reynaldo Vea, a University Design Institute Global Fellow who serves as the Chairman and CEO of iPeople Inc. and was the former president of the prestigious Mapua University in the Philippines, has seen this firsthand. He has been working with the Philippines’ Commission on Higher Education, the federal regulatory ministry for higher education, to develop a set of standards for a national approach to microcredentials. The Philippines has one of the fastest-growing higher education enrollment rates in Southeast Asia, but, even still, due to cost and access issues, there is a national call to find innovative ways to train and upskill new workers.
That is why countries in the Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America are moving toward national and regional frameworks that enable portability, comparability, and trust. These coordinated systems transform local innovation into validated pathways: learners gain credentials that translate into work, employers access reliable signals of skill, and societies close gaps that fragmented systems cannot. By working within these frameworks, universities can expand their impact—whether by enabling rural learners in the Philippines to access nationally recognized credentials or by supporting Pacific island institutions in creating programs that carry value across borders.
The Philippines has one of the fastest-growing higher education enrollment rates in Southeast Asia, but, even still, due to cost and access issues, there is a national call to find innovative ways to train and upskill new workers.
UDI Senior Fellow and Vice Chair of California Board of Regents calls for rethinking of postsecondary learning
Maria Anguiano calls for rethinking postsecondary learning, highlighting four key shifts to better align higher education with the needs of today’s learners in a new piece for The College Futures Foundation.
Building an Open Architecture for Skills and Learning Across Asia-Pacific
In the Asia-Pacific, microcredentials are emerging as a strategic lever for national workforce planning, linking today’s learners with tomorrow’s jobs. Singapore aligns them with its SkillsFuture agenda and digital transformation priorities, while Indonesia formalizes informal and on-the-job learning into credentials that employers value.
Across the region, the focus is on lifelong learning within a coordinated ecosystem. Microcredentials enable professionals to upskill, young learners to gain targeted competencies, and informal workers to validate hard-earned skills all through systems designed for interoperability, recognition, and alignment with workforce priorities.
Regional initiatives like ASEAN’s regional framework for digital credential recognition underscore the commitment to mobility and cross-border learning. By building an “open architecture” for skills, Asia-Pacific countries are connecting formal, non-formal, and informal learning in ways that future-proof the workforce and expand opportunity.
Further Learning:
- The push for micro-credentials in Singapore: What are they and are they for you?
- Highlights from the UNESCO-KEDI Asia-Pacific Regional Policy Seminar 2023
- Micro-credentials: An important part of a bigger ecosystem
Balancing Local Innovation and Regional Coordination in African Microcredentials
Across Africa, microcredentials are being built through both national autonomy and regional coordination, with shared frameworks ensuring portability, comparability, and workforce mobility. A recent milestone is the Africa-wide Microcredential Handbook, developed with African Union support to guide coherence and cross-border recognition.
National frameworks highlight local innovation: Mauritius is integrating Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) with higher education, while South Africa pilots models that validate informal and community-based learning and create stackable pathways toward national qualifications.
At the regional level, West Africa is advancing a credit transfer framework through the Commonwealth partnership, aiming to harmonize credential recognition across countries while respecting diverse policies and labor demands.
Further Learning:
- Micro-credentials: Towards qualification recognition, mobility and stackability
- Support implementation of the African Continental Qualifications Framework Handbook on Micro-credentials
- African Continental Qualifications Framework (ACQF) is Validated and Phase II is launched in Addis Ababa
Bridging Opportunity Gaps with Microcredentials in Latin America and the Caribbean
The goal of microcredentials in Latin America and the Caribbean is simple but transformative: a credential earned anywhere in the region should open doors everywhere.
Across Latin America and the Caribbean, higher education faces persistent gaps: only 46% of students graduate, and participation among the poorest learners is under 10%. Meanwhile, employers report that 60% of jobs face skill shortages, creating urgent demand for flexible, targeted learning pathways. Microcredentials offer a bridge. They create pathways of recognition, whether by connecting a student in a remote village to global learning opportunities or by affirming the expertise that Indigenous women and their communities have long sustained. Coordination is key; without it, credentials risk losing value across borders. A course earned in Jamaica should also carry weight in Mexico.
A recent study, Mapping Microcredentials in Latin America and the Caribbean: Towards a Common Framework, shows why a regional approach is critical. Short, stackable credentials can expand opportunity, promote equity, and connect learners directly to workforce needs. Building on this, UNESCO IESALC is leading efforts toward a regional framework that sets minimum standards for design, management, and quality assurance, providing a blueprint for linking microcredentials to education policy and workforce strategies.
Further Learning:
As we consider how microcredentials are reshaping systems, next month we will ask:
How can leaders in higher education balance the weight of tradition with the urgency for transformation? What could happen if leaders embraced the need for change and refused to settle for the status quo?
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