Validation of Prior Learning (VPL) has been at the Nordic agenda for the past 15–20 years, and validation is well established in the Nordic countries. Validation in these contexts encompasses formal, non-formal and informal learning.

One of the historical reasons for this development is the tradition of strong adult education, strong labour unions and involvement of the social partners in development of education and lifelong learning initiatives. ‘The Nordic countries’ are vastly different with regard to their way of organizing and embedding the validation work, and also in their way of handling each individual prior learning assessment. The Nordic countries, however, show a mutual interest in assuring the quality of the validation work’ (Grunnet and Dahler 2013, p. 4). This interest in quality in validation was the background for the development of a Nordic Model for quality in validation, which took place from 2012 to 2013. Experts from Island, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark decided to develop a common quality model. The development of the model was funded by Nordplus (www.nordplusonline.org/). The quality model was primarily developed for use in the educational institutions, however it can also be used by other stakeholders responsible for parts of the validation processes.

In this article, a study is presented of the Nordic quality model for VPL. The quality concept is introduced in the context of VPL as well as the Nordic model for quality. Our study of quality work employs an interactive approach, which is described briefly. Preliminary results from on-going processes in cases from Denmark, Finland, and Sweden are also presented. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.