Inventories

Four inventories of validation of non formal and informal learning practices in Europe are now available.
 
The first inventory was produced in 2000 by Jens Bjornavold, "Making learning visible - identification, assessment and recognition of non-formal learning in Europe". This report listed the existing practices in European countries and identified 5 models: Austro-German, Mediterranean, Nordic, NVQ, and Franco-Belgian.
 
The second inventory was produced by Danielle Collardyn and Jens Bjornavold in 2003, "Validation of non-formal and informal learning, a European Inventory, National policies and Practises". It was presented as an introduction of Group H's reflection. According to this inventory considerable development can be observed, since 2000. An increasing number of countries have introduced legal and institutional frameworks making possible validation of non-formal and informal learning on a permanent basis and as an integrated part of existing education and training systems. But in practice, the validation of non-formal and informal still appeared only as small islands in the ocean.
 
The third inventory and fourth inventory were produced by ECOTEC Research and Consulting in 2005 and 2007.  In the introduction to its first Inventory, ECOTEC stated that "in spite of numerous valuable contributions, existing information on validation of non-formal and informal learning is still rather limited in scope in many countries, and too widely spread in academic publications, policy papers". So, the objective of the European Inventory was to make non-formal and informal learning more visible "by collecting updated information on current practices and making this information, including best practices examples, available within a single volume to a wide range of audiences". The Inventory consisted of National reports on the "state of art" in every European country covering Vocational Education and Training, Higher Education and third sector and of an overview of findings.