The validation of acquired experience (VAE) was not created by a law. It is the result of a long history during which societies have gradually acknowledged that school is not the only place where one learns. This history also sheds light on the choices available today in Haiti.
The VAE is often presented as a recent innovation, appearing in France with the social modernization law of January 17, 2002. However, the question it raises is much older: can an institution certify skills acquired outside its own programs? To answer this, three narratives that have gradually come closer together must be distinguished: that of access to knowledge, that of lifelong learning, and that of the certification of acquired skills.
Expanding Access to Education
In the history of adult education, Terrot (1997) invites us to go back to modern Europe. In 1524, Martin Luther called upon German cities to found and maintain schools; in 1563, the Council of Trent prescribed the establishment of seminaries to train the clergy. Later, Jean-Baptiste de La Salle organized education for children from working-class backgrounds and training for teachers. None of these milestones directly announces the VAE. But all of them make education a matter of collective organization, and all expand the circle of those to whom it addresses.
In the 18th century, the Encyclopédie gave a new place to the arts, trades, and technical knowledge. In 1792, Condorcet defended an education that does not stop at childhood: learning becomes a lifelong activity. For professional experience to one day establish a diploma, it was first necessary to acknowledge that an adult continues to learn.
From the Right to Education to Recognition of Acquired Skills
With industrialization, and then with workers' demands, adult education became a social issue. In France, the social promotion law of 1959, followed by the interprofessional agreement of 1970 and the 1971 law on continuous vocational training, established employee training as an organized and funded right.
However, training an adult does not mean recognizing what they already know how to do. The first approach organizes the acquisition of new skills; the second evaluates prior learning, often built without the intention of formal training. This distinction will require specific validation mechanisms.
What Research Has Changed
Research on learning has laid the foundations for this evolution. John Dewey (1938) shows that experience can be a source of knowledge, but it does not automatically have educational value. David Kolb (1984) describes learning as a back-and-forth process between action and reflection. For the VAE, the consequence is decisive: the duration of practice does not prove competence. The experience must still be analyzed, articulated, and matched against the requirements of a diploma (Aubret and Gilbert, 2003).
As early as 2007, Ide Blériot and Marie-Clotilde Pirot raised a particularly pertinent question for Haiti: why require a written narrative when the evaluated skills are not based on writing? Their reflection does not aim to lower requirements, but to avoid writing proficiency or command of French from becoming an implicit criterion for professional recognition.
Three French Steps Not to Be Confused
In France, the recognition of acquired skills has developed in stages. As early as 1934, a law granted experienced technicians access to the title of state-certified engineer. The decree of August 23, 1985, commonly referred to as VAP 85, allows entry into higher education training without the normally required degree: it opens access to training but does not confer any diploma. The law of 1992 later allows a candidate to be exempted from part of the examinations. Finally, the law of 2002 establishes the VAE: a jury can award all or part of a diploma based on experience.
However, the report submitted to the Prime Minister by Éric Besson in 2008 reminds us that a law is not sufficient: in 2006, about 26,000 titles had been obtained through the VAE, far from the target of 60,000 per year, due to lengthy procedures, a confusing offer, and insufficient support.
Haiti: Initial Experiences Leading to the 2019 Law
In Haiti, this reflection is not new. Blériot and Pirot mentioned a first experience of recognition of acquired skills in 2007. In 2008, the University of Paris-Est Créteil and the University of Quisqueya launched a dual Master's program in education project management and training organization management, of which I was a student. Most of the enrollees, public servants from the Ministry of National Education, parliamentarians, or secondary school teachers, did not possess the required Master 1: VAP 85 allowed them to bypass this requirement. It was not a VAE: experience opened access to training, but the diploma was later obtained through the ordinary route.
Announced in 2012 among eight legislative projects intended to modernize education, the law on recognition and validation of acquired skills and professional experience (RVAEP) was published in the Moniteur on February 25, 2019. Its Article 12 specifies that national degrees of license, master, and doctorate are not accessible through this route; only the intermediate professional degrees of higher education are. The Haitian VAE thus primarily aims at professional certifications.
Recognizing Without Weakening
Three mechanisms must be distinguished: VAP 85, which opens access to training; the French VAE, which allows obtaining a diploma; and the Haitian VAEP, which primarily leads to professional certifications. They share the same idea: experience can produce recognizable skills without recognizing the same thing.
For Haiti, the challenge is not to replicate a foreign model, but to gather the conditions for credible recognition: frameworks, accredited organizations, trained juries, candidate support, and proof modes adapted to the country's realities. Recognizing experience does not mean devaluing the university or lightening diplomas. On the contrary, it requires taking seriously the knowledge built outside of school, while demanding that their certification is based on rigorous evidence.
This text is an abbreviated version of an article published on boursiquotherve.com, which contains complete references.
Hervé Boursiquot holds a Ph.D. in education sciences and is the author of Diplomas, Skills, and Validation of Acquired Experience in Haiti (L'Harmattan, 2023) and Teacher Practice Communities: The Challenge of Improving Education Quality in Haiti (L'Harmattan, 2024).
