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

Abstract

This article argues that one can use the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) to conceptualise 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 Africa 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 postmodern period of intensified globalisation that inevitably shapes what is possible in lifelong learning and the Africa Renaissance, it may be useful to frame "bridging the gap" with a broader notion of "mediating difference". The article uses the experiences of introducing RPL at the University of the Western Cape to illustrate the general argument.