RPL as cognitive praxis in linking higher education, the African Renaissance and lifelong learning

Abstract

This article argues that we can use the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) to reconceptualise the project of bridging the articulation gap between further and higher education in South Africa by framing the cognitive praxis of this project simultaneously within the African Renaissance and within a progressive global project of lifelong learning. The article then suggests that RPL requires recognising both the complementarity and the contestation or disjunction between different modes of learning and knowledge production. In a post-modern period of intensified globalisation that inevitably shapes what is possible in lifelong learning and the African Renaissance, it may be useful to frame ";bridging the gap"; within a broader notion of ";mediating difference";. The article uses our experience of introducing RPL at the University of the Western Cape to illustrate the general argument.


(South African Journal of Higher Education: 2003 17 (1): 47-53)