“You look at everything you have done so far in life”

The county is in dire need of workers. The Regional Development Department is now investing in the Validation Center in Norrbotten project to fast-track the hiring of people with the right skills.

It is called validation when someone who already has knowledge in different areas but lacks formal education has it recognized on paper. Caroline Stafström in Luleå is a strategist in the area of ​​skills provision at the Department for Regional Development in Region Norrbotten. She is also project manager for the Validation Center in Norrbotten, which has taken over since 2023 where previous projects in the area have ended. It is natural that the region is working on the issue.

Caroline Stafström is a strategist at the regional development unit in Region Norrbotten and project manager for the Validation Center in Norrbotten.

– Validation is important for the supply of skills, which is important for the region, she says.

In Norrbotten, the establishment of several large industrial facilities means that the need for recruitment will increase in most professional groups, unless development is slowed down.

– To meet the recruitment need, new trained personnel are needed, but it is also necessary that the existing knowledge among residents both in and outside Norrbotten is used in the best way. And that is where validation is an important tool, she notes.

Written into the Education Act

Validation can be relevant both for new Swedes who may not have worked in Sweden before and for natives who want to exchange skills or for other reasons need to have their skills verified.

Inger Holgersen in Arjeplog is employed by the region as coordinator for the project. She has previous experience working in municipal adult education.

– People have been talking about validation for a long time in the school world but haven't really known what it was, she says.

Inger Holgersen, Arjeplog, is employed by Region Norrbotten as coordinator of the project.

In recent years, the requirements for municipal adult education to offer validation have been tightened and written into the Education Act.

The National Agency for Education defines validation as follows: "Validation refers to a structured process that includes an in-depth mapping and an assessment aimed at recognizing a person's knowledge, regardless of how it was acquired. This means that knowledge can have been acquired through both formal education and informal learning. For example, the person may have gained their knowledge through studies or social and working life."

The nursing profession

Municipal adult education institutions, Komvux, are obliged to offer students who so wish an assessment of their knowledge, which can later lead to validation.

– When mapping, you look at everything you have done so far in your life. Have you read anything, worked on anything, have you taken care of an elderly relative for a period, do you have a boating certificate and so on. Everything can be put together to see if there is anything to take away, says Inger Holgersen.

The most common validation in the county so far is done against the nursing profession.

– If we can see that you have already completed parts of the training, you may not need to read everything in that course, but only the parts that are missing after comparison with the knowledge and competence requirements that exist. For example, it could be about palliative care, where you have been involved in caring for your grandmother in the final stages of her life. It is possible to save an incredible amount of time that way, explains Inger Holgersen.

Industry validation

The same is true for other professions. Validation can be carried out in virtually all vocational training courses offered by Komvux.

There is also industry validation, which means that industry organizations determine what is required in a profession in order to be validated, but the project has not yet focused on that.

– We have limited ourselves to vocational training, both municipal and those that external clients carry out for the municipalities, says Inger Holgersen.

There are several benefits to working with validation.

The Norrbotten Validation Center project will not work with the validations themselves, but will support the municipalities and private education actors in their work.

– We help create common structures and collaboration, create conditions and disseminate information. We also work to ensure that everyone works in the same way according to the Nordic quality model so that validation is quality assured, says Caroline Stafström.

Greater opportunities

A municipality that does not have the capacity to offer a certain validation itself could have a student complete the validation in another municipality. The only thing to do is to ensure that everyone follows the same quality requirements for the validation so that it is the same across the board.

– We gain so much if the municipalities come together instead of acting as individual islands. It gives us much greater opportunities, says Inger Holgersen.

In the long term, they hope to establish a permanent regional validation center. This would enable consensus and coordination to streamline validation as a tool, including through a portal for validation practitioners.

– Development work has begun on a regional support structure with the aim of promoting competence and capacity among those performing validation. This is partly due to the municipalities' increased obligation to validate within Komvux. We need help here, says Caroline Stafström.

Text and photo: Freelance journalist Ulrika Vallgårda/Yours

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Facts/Validation

Anyone who intends to start at Komvux has the right to an initial assessment of their skills and, under certain conditions, have their skills recognized through validation.

The responsibility lies with the home municipality and, as a rule, it is the study and career counselors who carry out the mapping.

There is also an obligation to ensure that a student is offered validation if there is a need and benefits the student's education so that it can be completed more quickly.

The validation process includes the following two steps:

• An in-depth assessment of the student's skills by reviewing all documents such as work certificates, grades and certificates from education. If necessary, a conversation should also be held with the person to obtain more information.
• An assessment of the student's knowledge. This checks and assesses whether the knowledge corresponds to the competence requirements to which the validation refers. The aim is that it should lead to recognition of the person's knowledge regardless of how it was acquired.

Those who have undergone validation will receive a certificate from the principal. There is also the possibility for the student to request a grade. Grades after validation are set through assessment.

Source: The National Agency for Education

Facts/The project

• The region is the project owner for the Validation Center in Norrbotten and the collaboration partner is the Association of Local Authorities of Norrbotten, which includes all 14 municipalities.
• The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Development has provided financial support and the budget for the one and a half year project is six million kronor.
• Three people are employed in the project, two of whom are from the region and one from Norrbotten Municipality.