Validation of Prior Learning (VPL)

Information sessions and career advising are regularly organised at two different levels:

• By the career counselors from the Orientation and Information University Service (Service Universitaire d’Information et d’Orientation);
• By TSM administrators periodically for their different programmes

You can download the VPL application file on TSM website or receive a print copy from the Executive Education office on TSM campus in office AF16.

APPLICATION FILE FOR VPL

On the application, the candidate must explain in a detailed manner all the skills and knowledge gained during his or her experience that are applicable to the degree the candidate would like to obtain.

The objective of the VPL unit is to: 

• Review the application to check whether it is complete;
• A professor will then assess the pedagogical suitability of the application and may invite the candidate for an interview to clarify certain parts if needed.

Once this initial phase is completed, the candidate will be notified of a favourable or unfavourable result. If accepted, a professor will be assigned to supervise the candidate.

During the individual support phase, the candidate prepares a written synthesis englobing experiences, abilities, and knowledge on the specific subject matter of the requested degree. The assigned professor will periodically work alongside with the candidate for:

• Organising and analysing the experiences in order to best emphasise their relevance to the requested degree syllabus;
• Analysing the selected experiences and reformulate them in terms of acquired knowledge;
• Judging the adequacy between professional experience and academic expectations;
• Facilitating the writing of the synthesis;
• Preparing the candidate for her/his oral presentation in front of the VAE jury.

The completed file will be studied by two rewiewers (one SST professor and one professional). The candidate is registered for the requested degree and is then called before a jury, and must justify the knowledge acquired through the course, present a file of evidence and finally answer the questions.

The jury will then decide to either:

• Entirely validate the candidate’s experience and thus grant her/him the entire degree;
• Partially validate the candidate’s experience and recommend registering for certain regular or Executive Education TSM classes to compensate for the missing parts of the candidate’s experience;
• Refuse to grant the entirety or a portion of the requested degree.

The degree awarded upon validation of the VPE jury is identical to the degree awarded to students who successfully passed university exams.
The President of the University will notify the candidate of the final decision.