Indigenizing Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition project awarded new funding
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — Lakehead University assistant professor Lana Ray was recently awarded $114,094 in Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer (ONCAT) funding over the next two years for a project on Indigenizing Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR). Ray is partnering with Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employment and Training Services and Nokiiwin Tribal Council for the Indigenizing Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR): Exploring how post-secondary institutions can recognize Indigenous community-based knowledge during credit and degree-granting processes project.
“This project is about being able to implement PLAR, or Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition, at universities,” says Ray, assistant professor in the Department of Indigenous Learning and Red Rock Indian Band citizen. “Currently, universities don’t typically do PLAR. It’s really just a process where students can obtain credits for different knowledges and skills they have that they haven’t acquired within an accredited institution. So it could be formal or informal environments that they received these skills and knowledges from, so for example, it could be cultural knowledge that they learned from a knowledge holder, it could be work experience that they have, or it could be other certifications that aren’t accredited.”
Ray says they are looking within community at what are some of the main knowledges and skills that exist, identifying if they have equivalency within the university and thinking about how to assess that equivalency.
“So the overall idea is that through Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition, Indigenous peoples could have advanced standing at university,” Ray says. “So they could maybe have a couple of credits left or maybe even a year or some other duration left in terms of their studies because the university is actually acknowledging their knowledge and skills that they’ve gained outside of the university.”
Ray says part of the issue is that within Ontario, there is “no real standardization of PLAR,” noting that PLAR has been around for about 50 years.
“Colleges to date have done a much better job of actually acknowledging PLAR, but it’s still not without its issues,” Ray says. “You could go to college, have part of your credits done through PLAR so you don’t have to do your full course load, but as soon as there is a pathway in place … going from college to university, some universities will say, ‘We actually won’t honour this pathway because some of your credits are PLAR.’”
Ray says part of the project is also about looking at if students have PLAR acknowledged in Indigenous institutes or colleges, that the university has a streamlined process in place to acknowledge and honour those credits.
“Some of the other issues with PLAR is that often it’s not done at an institutional level — in many cases it could be a one-off,” Ray says. “What we really want to do in this project is, it’s about PLAR but it’s really about centring Indigenous peoples and our needs.”
ONCAT also awarded $105,666 in funding to Denise Baxter, vice-provost Indigenous Initiatives, for the Actioning and Expanding Commitment to Indigenous Learners project and $77,448 in funding to Heather Murchison, vice-provost Institutional Planning and Analysis, for the Understanding Transfer Student Experience and Outcomes through Business Intelligence Analytics project.
“ONCAT is thrilled to be collaborating with Lakehead University,” says Yvette Munro, executive director at ONCAT, in an April 13 statement. “We are excited to see how these new projects – spanning cultural, analytic and administrative supports – will serve the needs of diverse student groups while leveraging data and cutting-edge technology to improve student access to, and navigability of, transfer pathways.”