The Extension School for Continuing Education continues to extend its portfolio of Microcredentials allowing more learners to obtain this officially recognised digital certificate.
The latest additions to the catalogue are all our Solar Energy Engineering courses, and the Railway Programme.
Cora van Haaren, Project Manager Lifelong Learning, coordinating Microcredentials at TU Delft, is proud to be able to offer learners more opportunities.
Increasing the availability of a broad range of Microcredentials enhances their usefulness to those seeking to expand their knowledge and skills.
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Cora van Haaren,
Project Manager Lifelong Learning, coordinating Microcredentials at TU Delft
What’s the value?
With Lifelong Learning being recognised as integral to personal and professional development and the array of learning opportunities expanding exponentially, it is vital to find an educational programme or training that delivers quality, is readily accessible and worth the time investment. Taking a course with a Microcredential certificate label can provide that sought-after value: it allows participants to showcase their newly acquired competence and assures potentially interested organisations that the course adheres to a verified industry standard. Thanks to the online format, Extension School courses are accessible anywhere in the world, making them particularly suited to the needs of busy professionals. They can then easily digitally showcase their latest credentials whilst applying their newly gained expertise on the job, whether they work in a local or global context.
A subject area that particularly requires both locally and globally applicable solutions is the Energy transition. The Extension School values its role a successful transition by providing educational solutions for climate change, the first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for which this is possible at TU Delft. Offering Microcredentials for all its Solar Energy Engineering Courses individually mean that the many highly educated people we will need to affect change can be in the right positions in governmental, non-governmental organisation organisations as well as private businesses.
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Advantages to industry
Additional benefits of units, courses, and full programmes bearing the Microcredential quality mark, are that it allows organizations to provide worthwhile professional development opportunities and training for groups of employees. That way they know employees are getting the same, rigorous, verified education in the field. Specifically, it helps them quickly upscale activities to adapt to the rapid changes in society, the environment, and the economy.
Growing for the future
Following its participation in the national pilot for Microcredentials in 2023, TU Delft is now involved in the working group (in Dutch) established by the Ministry of Education Culture and Science, to investigate embedding Microcredentials into Dutch law. We believe the expansion of this globally recognised quality mark in The Netherlands is important to keep increasing the relevance of Dutch education abroad. Being able to influence policy in this regard is vital to ensuring our courses keep building importance across the world. Our ultimate goal is to be able to expand and diversify our offer in order to reach as many people in as many industries and countries as possible.
What are Microcredentials -explanation video
Microcredentials – what are they?
A Microcredential is a digital certificate, issued in the form of an edubadge, bound by a globally recognised quality framework that allows those of completed the course successfully to demonstrate the knowledge and skills acquired in a small unit of study that can range between 84 and 840 hours. It shows anyone anywhere, the learning outcomes of the participant and the educational level and scope of the course.
