More flexible degrees in Spain: micro-credentials, dual degrees and bridges between VET and university

Democracia 21's launch speech asked for more flexible degrees in Spain, with practical experience at every stage and not only at the end of a degree. It is one of the most concrete promises in the speech, and Spain already has most of the legal parts to deliver it. They just don't fit together yet.

Start with the mismatch. Eurostat reports that in 2024, 35.0% of employed people in Spain with a tertiary education worked in jobs that do not require one, the highest over-qualification rate in the EU, against an EU average of 21.3%. Greece followed at 33.0%. At the same time, a large and growing share of young Spaniards study at a high level: the OECD's Education at a Glance 2025, as summarised by La Moncloa, found that 39% of new entrants to tertiary education in Spain come in through higher vocational training, FP de Grado Superior. And adults barely return. When the then universities ministry presented its micro-credentials plan in Málaga in June 2023, it noted that fewer than 5% of undergraduates at public universities were over 30.

Spain trains a lot of people once, in long blocks, and then struggles to match them to jobs and to retrain them later. A flexible system lets people move between vocational training, university and work in smaller steps, with each step counting.

The parts Spain already has

Micro-credentials have a European definition. The Council Recommendation of 16 June 2022 describes them as the record of learning outcomes gained after a small volume of learning, assessed against transparent standards, owned by the learner and portable. They can stand alone or combine into larger credentials, and their workload should be expressed in ECTS credits where possible. Spain's Royal Decree 822/2021 lets universities offer micro-credentials or micro-modules of under 15 ECTS, open to people with or without a degree.

Money arrived with the recovery plan. The Plan Microcreds put €50 million of NextGenerationEU funds into university micro-credentials, available until 30 June 2026, paying for new courses, grants for unemployed, low-income and vulnerable learners, and intermediation between universities and businesses.

Work experience inside degrees is regulated too. Under the same decree, ordinary external placements can reach at most 25% of a degree's credits and should be offered preferably in the second half of the degree. Degrees with the Mención Dual go further: between 20% and 40% of credits are earned in a company or institution.

The bridges between FP and university exist but are narrow. Royal Decree 534/2024 confirms that holders of a Técnico Superior can enter university without the access test. Credit recognition is harder. Royal Decree 822/2021 allows up to 25% of a degree's credits to be recognised from higher VET, but only when a college and a university sign an agreement approved by the university and the regional VET authority. The 2022 VET law asks administrations and universities to promote mutual recognition of ECTS between higher FP and degrees, again largely through agreements.

A credit passport for every learner

The left has a sound point here. Lifelong learning is a public responsibility, and the people who most need a second chance, the unemployed, people on low pay, workers whose sector is shrinking, are the least able to pay for it. The Plan Microcreds grants were the right instinct and should outlive the recovery funds. The market-liberal tradition has a sound point too. Universities and FP colleges should compete to design short courses that employers value, and money should follow the learner's choice. We set out how in our proposal for personal learning accounts.

The piece that joins them is old and belongs to neither camp: Anthony Giddens's social investment state, which treats education as an investment that runs through a person's whole life. To make that real, Spain needs one national credit passport. Every recognised course, from a 5-ECTS micro-credential to an FP module to a university subject, is recorded in ECTS in one place that the learner owns, in the format the EU recommendation already sets.

The passport comes with some plain rules.

Recognition between higher FP and related degrees becomes automatic. The ministries publish national tables that say which FP cycles count towards which degrees and by how many credits, up to the 25% ceiling, and in the other direction for university students who want a technical qualification. A student in Lugo should get the same recognition as one in Barcelona, without waiting for two institutions to sign a deal.

Micro-credentials stack. A set of university micro-credentials in a field adds up to a diploma and counts towards a degree, so an adult can build a qualification course by course while working.

Practical experience starts early. Every degree includes a first short placement or project with an employer or public body in the first two years, and more degrees adopt the Mención Dual where the labour market is ready for it.

Spain should test this before writing it into law. Two or three regions can run the automatic tables and the passport for a few FP families and their related degrees, and compare students' progress, drop-out and jobs with similar regions over three years. If students move further and faster, extend it nationally, and fund the adult places permanently through learning accounts.