Digital credentials can provide learners with the equivalent of a passport for learning, enhancing how they move across institutions, industries and borders. They can provide secure, verifiable records of someone’s skills and achievements across diverse education systems and labour markets. 

For employers and educational institutions, digital credentials can accelerate screening and verification processes because they do not carry the risks or delays associated with paper documentation. However, while digital credentials have huge potential, there is a gap between their promise and their use in practice. 

What are the benefits of digital credentials?

Digital wallets, verifiable credentials and decentralised registries mean stakeholders can check someone’s identity and qualifications without relying on a central authority. Open standards such as W3C Verifiable Credentials and 1EdTech Open Badges 3.0 mean learners have greater sovereignty over their data and can carry their credentials safely to different employers. 

Digital credentials also align with frameworks such as the Bologna Process (a series of agreements between European countries aimed at harmonizing higher education systems) and the EU’s Union of Skills, strengthening global trust in these systems so learners can use them internationally with confidence. 

Employer awareness and trust is growing 

More employers recognise digital credentials as a way to get a more detailed view of skills and build talent internally. Some are becoming issuers of credentials themselves to recognise on-the-job learning – part of a wider shift towards Learning and Employment Records (LERs). 

However, integration can be a challenge, whether that’s linking LERs to legacy systems or understanding the overwhelming number of technical standards available. Policies and technologies exist, but real-world implementation lags. The long-term impact, however, is expected to be transformative as practice catches up with potential.

Supporting lifelong learning and skills 

We accrue many learning experiences and qualifications across a lifetime, and digital credentials are designed to make them visible, portable and stackable. Learners can earn a diverse range of digital credentials, such as microlearning modules, that reflect their unique educational pathways. 

Over time, the adoption of technical standards aligned to policy frameworks will make the portability of credentials even easier. Initiatives such as Europass or the European Digital Credentials for Learning, as well as countries’ own emergent microcredentialing frameworks, all feed into more streamlined recognition of learning in support of international academic mobility.  

The future of digital credentials 

The technical foundations have now been laid for successful and portable digital credentials; the next decade will be all about integration and adoption.

Ultimately, these credentials will be embedded into everyday systems such as HR and education platforms, making the lifelong learning journey more frictionless. But to get there, policy, technology and practice need to move in concert.

By working together, stakeholders ensure that digital credentials make all learning visible and actionable and turn microcredentials into macro opportunity.

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