Malta - Institute of Tourism Studies builds professional capital through upskilling and validation of informal and non-formal learning

Academic staff competences are crucial to ensuring that vocational learners are equipped with the necessary knowledge, skills and competences for the future.

To develop a customised up-skilling programme for academic staff, ITS developed a process to validate informal and non-formal learning. The process was modelled on the recently published European guidelines by CEDEFOP (2015) and consisted of a number of iterative steps as shown below.

Validation process phases

1. Information about validation
2. Establishment of necessary prerequisites
3. Documentation procedures
4. Coordination tasks
5. Guidance on an individual basis
6. Mapping of competences
7. Assessment
8. Follow ups

Throughout each phase of the process, the individual (in this case the academic member of staff) was at the centre. A set of quality indicators were developed to benchmark the competences of academic staff gained through informal and non-formal learning. A variety of validation tools, including self-assessment reports, interviews and documentation analysis, were adopted to determine the identification of current skills and gaps. The key results of the assessment determined the need to improve skills in several domains, to build both the technical and the pedagogic capacity of academic staff:

• global and local business know-how;
• strategic mindset and thinking;
• forecasting, risk evaluation;
• services, marketing and sales;
• operating in virtual environments;
• leadership and management;
• entrepreneurship;
• research, development and innovation;