Micro-degrees are “gig credentials for the gig economy,” exacerbating the tenuous existence of struggling workers and turning universities into job coaching services that save companies money on in-house training, according to two academics.

Wheelahan and Moodie: precarious work certification

Leesa Wheelahan and Gavin Moodie have delivered a scathing assessment of an educational trend sweeping the world. These University of Toronto researchers say microcredentials are fractured qualifications that abet the fracturing of formal employment through casualisation, Uber and food delivery apps.

Writing in the journal Higher Education, they say microcredentials reframe universities as “an instrument of microeconomic change” to serve market needs. “Their potential to underpin contingent, precarious work is greatest for those who are the most disadvantaged,” they write. “Those without the access to elite occupations provided by elite universities must take on more risk to ‘second-guess’ the requirements of the labour market so that they have the ‘right’ skills needed at the right time for the right job.”

The paper says that microcredentials are being embraced in parts of North America, Africa and Australasia, where New Zealand has incorporated them into its qualifications framework. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, European Commission and Unesco are all developing recognition frameworks for microcredentials.

But the paper says many of the bite-sized courses’ supposed spinoffs — social inclusion, student-centred learning and “self-realisation” for learners — are not supported by evidence. The limited data on their employment outcomes suggest that the benefits “are certainly lower than for substantial credentials”, often failing to lift graduates out of poverty.

Dr. Moodie likens the enthusiasm for microcredentials to the fervour for massive open online courses in 2012 and for online education during the 1990s dot-com bubble. All three “crazes” had been touted on similar grounds: they made learning more accessible, affordable and democratic and institutions more flexible, relevant and innovative. “But all three hypes have been deeply embedded in economic interests which degrade the educational value of higher education,” he says.

People do not master automotive engineering by obtaining driver’s licences, argues Moodie. “Microcredentials… are misguided (if) they seek to displace rather than complement substantial qualifications. And they are distracting and potentially damaging if their promotion undermines the structures and processes needed to support substantive qualifications,” he contends.