Narrative: III. a. 2. F.

Credential transparency revolutionizes how credentials are recognized and valued across the state's workforce and educational systems by creating clarity and uniformity in the credentialing landscape. It is intended to make the qualifications of job seekers more transparent and understandable to employers, educators, and individuals themselves.

Role in the Arkansas Workforce State Plan:

• Establish Credential Registry: Implements a comprehensive, state-wide registry that lists all available credentials, including degrees, certificates, licenses, badges, and apprenticeships, along with their associated skills and competencies.
• Facilitate Skills-Based Practices: Offers human and machine-readable data that demonstrates the relationship between skills, credentials, and learning opportunities, thereby aligning educational and occupational pathways with current market demands.
• Increase Accessibility and Usability: Ensures that information about credentials and programs is easily accessible and usable by all stakeholders, including job seekers, employers, and education providers.
• Empower Job Seekers: Individuals can better understand and communicate their qualifications, making informed decisions about their career paths and educational opportunities.
• Aid Employers in Talent Acquisition: Employers gain a clearer understanding of potential employees' skills and competencies, leading to more effective hiring and workforce development strategies.
• Support Data-Driven Decision Making: The credential registry provides valuable data that can inform policy decisions, educational program development, and workforce planning.

Credential transparency plays a crucial role in creating a more transparent, efficient, and responsive workforce system, one where every credential is recognized for its value and relevance in the broader economic context. This initiative enhances the alignment of education and training with real-world career opportunities, benefiting individuals, employers, and the state's economy alike.

All core benchmark indicators in adult education are tied to improving adult participants' employment and education outcomes. Adult Education focuses on improving the opportunities tied to these benchmarks, which include attaining a credential, earning a high school equivalency diploma, and entering the workforce.  Adult education providers have collectively focused on industry-recognized postsecondary credentials applicable to market research, collaboration with local industry, and planning with local workforce development boards (LWDBs) and individual advisory boards to produce coursework and partnerships in programs associated with workplace and workforce components. These begin with the most basic certificates and credentials, and through the career pathways model and related career clusters, adult education offers Integrated Education and Training (IET) to adults.

Adult education centers model the practice of using contextualized material related to a career field or sector to assist adults in becoming academically proficient and knowledgeable about the job duties and responsibilities of a particular career. 

Courses are packaged together with business and industry to achieve a certificate or credential upon completion. Completing courses in the IET model leads to career pathways in associated fields and postsecondary education. One of the key components of adult education is working to create and improve IET opportunities that will enable individuals to secure industry-relevant certifications or credentials, obtain employment within an occupational area, or advance to higher levels of future education and employment.

Working with WIOA One-Stop Partners helps create a framework for existing education and workforce services to move from disconnection to integration into one system. Ideas, curricula, and best practices are shared through regional and local training and conferences.  The curriculum is concurrently and contextually taught to learners for both general and specific career and postsecondary advancement opportunities.

This process of working with WIOA partners in conjunction with local workforce development boards and local advisory boards offers a more efficient and customer-centered approach to workforce development. Adult Education's best practices are shared with One-Stop Partners for information and collaboration purposes. This allows opportunities for co-enrollment of participants across programs and a reduction in the duplication of services. The attention, timing, and education or training involved benefit from having core partners working together to bring shared services to align with the skill needs of industries and prepare individuals to be successful for future employment or postsecondary education opportunities, including apprenticeships. Examples of the improved activities leading adults to certifications in beginning health science coursework start with CPR and First Aid and lead to options for Phlebotomy, Sterile Technician, Pharmacy Technician, CNA, LPN, and so forth. Another example in the transportation field begins with certifications in OSHA and or as a forklift operator, which can lead to the pursuit of a commercial driver's license (CDL), crane operator, heavy equipment operator, additional CDL endorsements, or other postsecondary opportunities in transportation and logistics. One more example is in the Broadband field, where participants can begin with OSHA and CPR/First Aid and bundle packaged coursework to attain certificates as a cellphone tower technician, underground directional driller certificate, and wireless and fiberoptic technician, which can lead to additional stackable credentials in the telecommunication field.

Associated with the scope of developing IET courses encompasses many different prepackaged credential applications found in the Office of Skills Development, Career Technical Education, Arkansas Community Colleges, Vocational Rehabilitation, and other key WIOA partners. Utilizing the resources and efforts of all partners is a key component in meeting the adult learner's demands and minimizing duplication of resources. In adult education’s data management system, Literacy, Adult and Community Education System (LACES), the participation in 2022-2023 in postsecondary education credentials had 1027 participants either enrolled in or earned a certificate/credential/diploma. Popular industry-recognized credentials included Certified Nurse Assistant, Pharmacy Technician, Certified Medical Technician, Phlebotomy, Dental Assistant, Commercial Driver’s License, Heavy Equipment Operation and Safety, Welding, Education Paraprofessional, Praxis Exams in Education, Plumbing, Trac-Pipe, Condense Water Heater NPE, and others. Through continued educational practices and collaboration with key partners, programs have demonstrated the ability to deliver access to industry-specific credentials for their participants. Adult education focuses its technical assistance on honing best practices across the state as credentials and gains are linked to key educational benchmarks.

 Credential attainment is a consideration in the development of ARS’ client’s individualized plan for employment. ARS’ internal training unit, Arkansas Career Development Center (ACDC) provides training programs that result in industry recognized credentials.

DSB works with participants to identify credentials that will assist them in achieving their employment goals during the IPE development phase. For Pre-ETS students this also occurs during the provision of Counseling on Post-Secondary Enrollment. DSB supports participants in attending training towards credentials and with the necessary supports to succeed during those programs.