THISISGRAEME

The Passport Is Not the Point

Graeme Smith

Signal Intelligence Briefing 003

Skills passports are moving from policy language into working infrastructure.

France has launched a state-backed Passeport de compétences. California is piloting a Career Passport. Singapore has built a Careers & Skills Passport into its national skills ecosystem. The Philippines has launched a mobile-first TESDA Skills Passport. The UK has sector-specific passport activity alongside broader Skills England reform work. Europe is developing digital credential infrastructure through Europass and European Digital Credentials for Learning. The OECD is treating skills-first labour markets as a significant policy direction. See References: Caisse des Dépôts / Mon Compte Formation; California Governor’s Office; SkillsFuture Singapore / MySkillsFuture; TESDA; Skills England; European Commission / Europass; OECD.

The more important signal is not simply that skills passports are appearing.

It is that they are not all the same thing.

Some are statutory record systems; some are learner wallets; some are employment interfaces, sector passports, standards frameworks or job-matching tools. Some start with formal education, others with workforce demand, digital identity or recognition of prior learning.

The phrase skills passport is already becoming a container for several different architectures. That matters because if we treat the passport as the main thing, we miss the deeper shift.

The passport is not the point.

The passport is only the visible container. The real question is what sits underneath it: what evidence it holds, who signs the claims, who verifies them, who controls sharing, and what a learner can carry across education, work, community, iwi, industry and future opportunity.

In other words: who owns the graph?

1. Purpose of this briefing

Primary goal

This briefing examines the emerging international movement toward skills passports, learner records, digital credentials and portable capability profiles.

Its purpose is not to catalogue every initiative, but to surface the deeper architectural question:

If skills passports are coming, who owns the learner capability graph beneath them?

Core strategic premise

Skills passports are emerging as possible infrastructure for skills-first labour markets, workforce mobility, lifelong learning, recognition of prior learning and education-to-employment signalling. But the passport itself is not the important object.

In this briefing, I use Learner Capability Graph as an analytic frame, not as an official policy term.

The graph is the connected evidence ecology of claims, credentials, assessment judgements, attestations, lived experience, workplace practice, context, relationships and future pathways that a serious passport would need to carry or reference.

A transcript records achievement. A CV narrates experience. A badge makes a claim. A passport allows selected records to travel. A learner capability graph connects the evidence underneath all of them.

Learner Capability Graph diagram showing credentials, assessments, work experience, attestations, learner-supplied evidence, pathways, context, community contribution and RPL evidence around a learner-owned graph.

What this briefing is not

This briefing does not argue for:

Nor does it assume that every skills passport initiative is automatically empowering. Some may become useful public infrastructure; others may become another gatekeeping layer.

The strategic issue is not whether a passport exists, but whether the evidence architecture underneath it is trustworthy, portable, culturally valid, interoperable and meaningfully controlled by the learner.

Desired reader outcome

By the end of this briefing, decision-makers should understand:

2. Executive signal summary

Signal 1 — Skills passports are emerging internationally

Several jurisdictions are now building, piloting or exploring infrastructure for portable, verified skills records.

France, California, Singapore, the Philippines, the UK, the EU/Cedefop ecosystem and the OECD are all operating in this space, but at different levels of maturity and through different governance models. France and Singapore appear among the more operationally mature examples; the Philippines has launched a mobile-first TVET-to-jobs model; California is in pilot; the UK has sector-specific activity and skills-system reform rather than a settled national passport; and the EU is building a standards layer.

Signal 2 — These systems are not all the same thing

The term “skills passport” now covers multiple models:

The field is not converging on one artefact. It is converging on one problem:

How does capability become more visible, trusted, portable, interoperable and usable across education and work?

Signal 3 — The passport is only as strong as the evidence beneath it

A skills passport becomes useful only when someone can make a defensible decision from it: hiring, placement, recognition of prior learning, funding, workforce planning, or learner progression.

This is why the evidence layer matters more than the interface.

Signal 4 — Learner control is not the same as learner ownership

Most systems claim some form of learner control over sharing. That matters. But controlling publication is not the same as owning the graph.

France preloads data from official systems while learners control visibility and publication. Singapore draws heavily on government-held employment, qualification and training data. California appears more explicit about selective disclosure through its Career Passport design and procurement context. The EU wallet model is technically strong on learner-controlled credential sharing, though implementation and employer adoption vary across contexts. See References: Caisse des Dépôts / Mon Compte Formation; SkillsFuture Singapore / MySkillsFuture; California Governor’s Office; European Commission / Europass.

The constitutional distinction is simple:

The learner should own the graph. Everyone else signs their part.

Signal 5 — New Zealand has fragments, not a coherent operating model

A New Zealand policy scan, checked against official sources, suggests that Aotearoa already has several components that resemble skills passport infrastructure: NZQA’s Record of Achievement, NZQA-approved micro-credentials, recognition of prior learning and credit recognition/transfer, Tahatū career-navigation content, Industry Skills Boards, TEC micro-credential funding settings, digital identity and credential infrastructure, and health/Māori workforce priorities. See References: NZQA; TEC; Tahatū; Ministry of Education; Digital.govt.nz; Beehive; Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora.

At present, these components do not appear to be assembled into a coherent learner-owned, workforce-facing skills passport. The architecture is visible; the operating model is scattered.

3. Why this matters

A. Credential trust

Formal credentials still matter.

But employers, providers, funders and learners increasingly need more granular answers: what can this person actually do, who has verified it, where was it demonstrated, is the evidence current, and can it be trusted in another context?

Skills passports are one response to this pressure: a more portable way to connect learning, credentials, experience and work.

But if the evidence underneath is weak, unclear, non-portable or poorly governed, the passport becomes a more elegant version of the old transcript problem: more information, not necessarily more trust.

B. Workforce mobility

Modern labour markets increasingly require people to move across roles, sectors, training pathways, regions and stages of life.

Traditional qualifications can be too slow, too coarse, or too disconnected from actual workforce transitions.

Skills passports, learner records and digital credentials are emerging partly because systems need better ways to recognise non-degree credentials, work-based learning, military service, apprenticeships, micro-credentials, prior learning, informal learning, continuing professional development, workplace practice, sector licences and role readiness.

California’s Career Passport material frames the pilot around real-world skills, experience and learning, while the wider LER architecture is intended to connect academic records, verified credentials, work-based learning, prior learning and employment signals. See References: California Governor’s Office.

C. Recognition of prior learning

Recognition of prior learning is one of the hardest unresolved design problems because it converts prior work, informal learning, life experience and existing capability into formally recognised credit only when the evidence can be assessed against agreed outcomes.

International examples show sharp variation. France has an explicit RPL connection through VAE. California links Career Passport work to prior learning and skills-based hiring. European Digital Credentials for Learning can include recognition statements and micro-credentials. Singapore and the Philippines appear more forward-facing: training leads to certification, certification leads to jobs. See References: Caisse des Dépôts / Mon Compte Formation; California Governor’s Office; European Commission / Europass; SkillsFuture Singapore / MySkillsFuture; TESDA.

But the harder problem is backward-facing:

How does lived experience, work experience, informal learning, community contribution, cultural practice and prior professional capability become credible assessed evidence without being flattened or forced through a purely credential-first lens?

This is where the learner capability graph becomes strategically important: the passport may carry the output, but the graph must hold the evidence.

D. Learner sovereignty

The next generation of learner records could empower people, or make them more legible to systems that do not fully understand them. That is the sovereignty question.

A learner should not merely be the subject of a record. In a strong learner-centred model, they should be the holder of their own evidence ecology.

Institutions can issue, employers can verify, assessors can judge, mentors and supervisors can attest, AI can help organise evidence, funders can read aggregated patterns, and platforms can carry signals.

The design aim should be that the learner remains the custodian of the whole.

E. Māori, Pacific, community and lived-experience capability

Generic skills systems often prefer clean taxonomies: skill tags, levels, frameworks, competencies and dashboards. Everything sortable, searchable and flattened just enough for procurement to smile politely.

But some capability does not survive flattening well.

In hauora Māori, for example, important capability may include tikanga, whanaungatanga, manaakitanga, whakapapa-informed practice, advocacy, whānau trust, lived experience, community contribution, navigation, cultural judgement and relational leadership.

These are not decorative “soft skills” attached to the real work; in many contexts, they may be the work.

A generic skills passport could recognise certificates while missing the capability that makes a practitioner trusted, effective and safe in context.

This is why learner sovereignty and Māori data sovereignty are not side issues. Te Mana Raraunga defines Māori data sovereignty as the inherent rights and interests Māori have in relation to the collection, ownership and application of Māori data, and frames Māori data governance as the structures, accountability mechanisms, legal instruments and policies through which Māori exercise control over Māori data. See References: Te Mana Raraunga.

For a skills passport or learner capability graph, Māori data governance must therefore shape consent, collection, access, interpretation, stewardship, future use and benefit—not merely privacy compliance after the architecture has already been built. These are architectural issues.

4. Current system reality

International reality

The global field is moving, but unevenly. The useful distinction is not “who has a passport?”, but what kind of evidence system each jurisdiction is building.

France represents a statutory, state-backed approach. Its passport is connected to Mon Compte Formation and operated by Caisse des Dépôts. Public sources describe it as gathering diplomas, professional experience, training, certifications and other recognised records, with learners controlling publication and sharing while much of the data is preloaded from official systems. France also has explicit links to VAE, its recognition of prior learning mechanism. See References: Caisse des Dépôts / Mon Compte Formation.

California represents a policy-led Learning and Employment Record pilot. Its Career Passport is framed around skills-based hiring and recognition of real-world skills, experience and learning, with the 2026 pilot testing selected vendors with real users. See References: California Governor’s Office.

Singapore represents inter-agency infrastructure. Its Careers & Skills Passport consolidates employment, qualification, certification and skills records, allows verified sharing with employers and job portals, and appears strongest where evidence already sits inside government-backed data systems. See References: SkillsFuture Singapore / MySkillsFuture.

The Philippines represents a mobile-first TVET-to-jobs model. TESDA’s Skills Passport combines certificates, training records, identity validation, QR-enabled résumés, employer matching, scholarships and learning paths. It is less cathedral and more bus depot: direct, transactional and connected to employment. See References: Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

The UK is earlier and more fragmented. Official GOV.UK sources confirm Skills England’s broader role in analysing skills demand, improving access to training, building a more responsive skills system, and supporting shared skills language through tools such as the UK Standard Skills Classification. Separate official material also confirms a clean energy skills passport for oil and gas workers moving into offshore wind. The broader national skills-passport design remains less settled. See References: Skills England.

Europe is building a standards and credentialing layer rather than a single passport. European Digital Credentials for Learning, the Europass wallet, the European Learning Model, ESCO and EQF alignment, and verifiable credential approaches form infrastructure that can support portability across systems. See References: European Commission / Europass.

The OECD provides a policy legitimacy layer. Its skills-first labour market work frames demonstrable skills as central to hiring, progression and training, and discusses skills passports, micro-credentials, common skills languages and recognition of prior learning as part of the enabling infrastructure. See References: OECD.

New Zealand reality

New Zealand is not starting from zero.

Official New Zealand sources support the policy scan’s conclusion that Aotearoa already has several components resembling a proto-skills-passport ecosystem:

The critical gap is not the absence of components, but the absence of an explicit cross-agency operating model for learner-owned, verifiable, employer-readable and portable capability evidence.

NZRoA is already a verified credential spine, but it is not a full skills, experience, licences, placements, workplace evidence, employer attestation, CPD or cultural capability passport.

Micro-credentials create stackable units, but portability, employer readability, funding alignment and wallet integration remain fragmented.

RPL and credit recognition/transfer supply recognised pathways for awarding credit for previous study, work, informal learning and life experience. See References: NZQA; Tahatū Career Navigator.

But NZQA’s guidance confirms that RPL remains a formal assessment process against programme, qualification, micro-credential or standard outcomes, and Tahatū presents RPL and CRT as processes learners apply for through providers. They are therefore recognition mechanisms, not yet a standing portable national evidence layer.

Industry Skills Boards could become part of an industry translation layer, but this scan did not identify a visible national mechanism connecting ISB standards to learner-owned digital records.

Tahatū provides learner-facing navigation, but it is guidance and pathway information, not a verified credential wallet.

Digital identity and credential rails are beginning to move into position, but the education and workforce use case does not yet appear to be assembled.

5. What the system may be misunderstanding

Misunderstanding 1 — “The passport is the innovation”

The passport is not the innovation. The passport is the container. The innovation is the trust architecture underneath it.

A skills passport without a strong evidence layer is just a better interface for old records.

The real system shift is from credential as award toward capability as verified, contextual, portable evidence.

Misunderstanding 2 — “Learner-controlled sharing means learner ownership”

This is a dangerous conflation. A system may allow learners to share selected records while still collecting, structuring, interpreting and governing the underlying data through institutions, agencies or platforms.

Learner-controlled sharing matters, but learner ownership asks a deeper question: can the learner hold, export, recombine, contextualise and carry their evidence across systems?

If not, the system may provide access without sovereignty. A portal is not a passport; a passport is not necessarily ownership; and ownership is not real if the learner cannot leave.

Misunderstanding 3 — “Skills are neutral”

Skills frameworks can appear neutral. They rarely are. They embed assumptions about what counts, who decides, what is visible, what is valuable, and what can be measured.

For technical skills, this may be manageable. For relational, cultural, community-held, Indigenous, lived-experience, care-based and context-bound capability, it can become dangerous.

The risk is not only exclusion. The risk is flattening.

A system may claim to include Māori capability by translating it into generic skill tags, while stripping out the tikanga, whakapapa, authority, relationship and context that gave the capability meaning.

That would not be recognition.

It would be extraction with labels.

Misunderstanding 4 — “The platform will solve it”

The worst version of the future is easy to imagine: a national portal is commissioned, a vendor is selected, a glossy interface appears, learners log in, providers upload records, employers are told to use it, everyone attends webinars, and the thing technically works.

And yet the hard questions remain unanswered: what counts as capability, who signs the claim, how is evidence acquired, how is informal learning recognised, how are cultural and relational capabilities represented, how does RPL travel, can learners export their graph, can the system interoperate with future standards, can employers read the signals, and can learners leave?

The platform is not the strategy. The platform should express the strategy.

6. Emerging adaptation patterns

Pattern 1 — From credentials to evidence ecologies

The field is moving beyond the idea that a qualification alone can carry all the trust required by learners, employers, providers and funders. Credentials still matter, but they are becoming one node in a larger evidence ecology.

A capability graph may contain:

The Māori health workforce demonstrator concept note proposes a minimal data model that includes learner identity, credential data, evidence, pathway information, and consent/access settings. It separates RPL artefacts, workplace attestations, placement sign-off and assessment records, and proposes learner choice over iwi/whānau context.

That is the right direction: not a passport first, but an evidence ecology first.

Pattern 2 — From generic records to decision-useful signals

A passport only matters when someone can make a decision from it: entry into a programme, credit recognition, RPL approval, placement readiness, employment shortlisting, role progression, assessment readiness, targeted upskilling, professional development planning, funding allocation or workforce planning.

International experience suggests employer adoption remains a persistent implementation risk. Learners may hold credentials, but the value is realised only if employers understand and use the signals.

So the question becomes: what decision does this evidence support? If the answer is unclear, the graph becomes decorative.

Pattern 3 — From “verified only” to trust hygiene

Not all evidence has the same status. It should not. A serious learner capability graph needs trust hygiene.

A useful distinction is:

Verified

Confirmed by an authoritative system, organisation, issuer or formal record.

Assessed

Judged against agreed outcomes, standards, criteria or performance expectations.

Attested

Witnessed or endorsed by someone with relevant professional, cultural, relational or contextual authority.

Learner-supplied

Added by the learner as part of their story, reflection, aspiration, lived experience or self-identified capability.

The demonstrator concept note uses this distinction to keep trust clean and avoid turning a CV into gospel.

This avoids two equal and opposite failures: bureaucratic blindness, where only formal credentials count and lived experience disappears; and naïve inflation, where everything someone says about themselves is treated as equally verified.

A capability graph needs a middle path: rich evidence, clear status, no false authority.

Pattern 4 — From national platform to regional demonstrator

The New Zealand scan points to a practical pathway: do not begin with a national skills passport.

Begin with a regional or sector demonstrator aligned to official policy rails already in motion: NZQA, TEC, Industry Skills Boards, digital identity, Tahatū, and health/Māori workforce priorities. See References: NZQA; TEC; Ministry of Education; Digital.govt.nz; Tahatū; Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora.

This is especially relevant where capability is real but under-recognised:

The opportunity is not to build another isolated platform, but to assemble the missing connective tissue locally in a way that can later plug into national rails.

7. Strategic implications

Short term

International skills passport activity is likely to continue expanding, and the term will become both more common and less precise.

Institutions, employers, agencies, vendors and policymakers will use the same language to mean different things, so New Zealand actors should avoid being seduced by the label.

The useful question is not whether New Zealand needs a skills passport. It is what evidence architecture would make capability visible, trusted, portable and usable.

Medium term

Pressure is likely to increase around:

New Zealand’s current fragments may begin to pull toward each other: NZQA has achievement records and quality assurance; TEC has funding levers; ISBs may become stronger carriers of industry relevance; Tahatū has learner-facing pathway language; digital identity infrastructure may provide trust rails; and health and Māori workforce priorities create strong use cases.

But unless an operating model emerges, those fragments may remain scattered.

Long term

The deeper transition may be from institution-owned achievement records toward learner-owned capability graphs.

The learner would no longer be merely the subject of a provider record. They would become the holder of a portable evidence ecology.

Institutions, employers, assessors, iwi, communities, mentors and platforms could still contribute claims, but they would not own the whole.

That is the constitutional shift.

8. Intervention options

Option 1 — Wait for a national passport

New Zealand could wait for a government-led national skills passport initiative. This may eventually happen, but it is likely to be slow, cross-agency, procurement-heavy and vulnerable to institutional compromise.

The risk is that by the time a national model appears, the evidence architecture may already have been shaped by generic assumptions.

Option 2 — Extend existing records

NZQA’s Record of Achievement could be extended or supplemented, building from a trusted national spine.

But it risks remaining credential-centred unless the evidence graph expands beyond formal NZQCF achievements. A transcript plus extras is still not the same as a learner-owned capability graph.

Option 3 — Build sector passports

Industry Skills Boards, employers or sector bodies could build sector-specific passports.

This may work well in regulated, high-risk or ticket-heavy sectors such as construction, infrastructure, health, logistics or energy.

The risk is fragmentation: every sector builds its own pass and the learner becomes portable only inside silos.

Option 4 — Build regional demonstrators

A regional demonstrator could test the missing operating model before software or national policy hardens.

This could focus on one pathway, one cohort, one credential stack, one evidence taxonomy and one governance model.

The Māori health workforce concept note proposes this kind of demonstrator: a small pathway cohort, a bounded NZQA-aligned credential stack, RPL evidence points, workplace attestations, placement records, cultural capability artefacts, and separate verified, assessed, attested and learner-supplied evidence categories.

For this briefing’s purpose, this is probably the most useful near-term option: small enough to build, grounded enough to test, and strategic enough to scale.

Option 5 — Build platform first

This is the tempting option. It should be resisted.

The platform should come after the operating model: prove the evidence architecture first, then decide what technology is actually required.

Otherwise the platform becomes an expensive shrine to unsolved questions.

9. Emerging directional principles

Principle 1 — The passport is the container

Do not confuse the visible interface with the underlying architecture. The passport matters only if the graph beneath it is trustworthy.

Principle 2 — The learner owns the graph

This is the central line: the learner owns the graph. Everyone else signs their part.

Principle 3 — Evidence needs status

Every claim should carry a trust status: verified, assessed, attested or learner-supplied. This keeps the graph honest.

Principle 4 — Capability is contextual

Capability is not only a list of skills. It is demonstrated in context, interpreted through relationships, shaped by culture, and made meaningful through use.

A graph that strips out context may increase visibility while reducing truth.

Principle 5 — Build the evidence layer before the platform

Do not begin with software. Begin with the operating model: what evidence, whose authority, which decisions, what consent, what portability, what recognition, and what pathways?

The technology should come later.

Principle 6 — Interoperability matters

Closed systems are likely to become future liabilities.

Any serious model should be designed with future compatibility in mind: NZQA/NZQCF, ISB standards, TEC investment logic, digital identity rails, verifiable credential standards, and learner-controlled sharing. See References: NZQA; TEC; Ministry of Education; Digital.govt.nz; European Commission / Europass.

Principle 7 — Māori data governance is not optional

Where Māori learners, kaimahi, iwi, whānau, mātauranga, tikanga or cultural capability are involved, Māori data governance should shape consent, stewardship, interpretation, use, access, sharing, repatriation and future benefit. This follows from Māori data sovereignty: Māori rights and interests in Māori data, and the need for governance models that are values-led, Te Tiriti-informed and centred on Māori needs and priorities. See References: Te Mana Raraunga; Te Kāhui Raraunga; Stats NZ.

Otherwise the system risks recognising Māori capability by extracting it. That is not acceptable architecture.

A Māori-centred capability graph should therefore treat provenance, context, relationships, authority, consent, benefit, access and future use as first-order design requirements.

10. Watchlist

International signals worth monitoring

California Career Passport pilot

Watch the results of the June–August 2026 pilot, vendor testing, open standards compliance, and employer adoption.

France Passeport de compétences

Watch how “Mes compétences” and “Mon avenir” develop, especially whether RPL outcomes flow cleanly into the passport.

Singapore Careers & Skills Passport

Watch employer activation. Registration is not the same as meaningful use.

Philippines TESDA Skills Passport

Watch whether the system exposes APIs or remains a TESDA-centric ecosystem.

Skills England

Watch whether the UK moves from sector-specific passports and shared skills-language tools toward a coherent interoperability model across credentials, public services and employer systems.

Cedefop / EU digital credentials work

Watch the 2026 digital credentials survey and developments in European Digital Credentials for Learning.

OECD skills-first labour market work

Watch how OECD language shapes policy legitimacy and national investment.

New Zealand signals worth monitoring

NZQA Record of Achievement

Does it remain a transcript, or begin to connect to broader evidence and capability records?

NZQA micro-credentials

Do they become employer-readable, stackable capability signals, or remain provider-administered credentials?

RPL / credit recognition / credit transfer

Do RPL and CRT remain provider-applied credit processes, or begin to connect into a more portable evidence layer?

Industry Skills Boards

Do ISBs become a translation layer between workforce standards and learner-held records?

TEC funding settings

Does funding continue to follow programmes only, or begin to support evidence infrastructure, portability and workforce capability visibility?

Tahatū

Does career navigation remain informational, or begin to connect to verified learner records?

Digital identity and credentials

Do government trust rails connect to education and workforce credentials?

Health and Māori workforce priorities

Does any official model emerge for integrating workforce data, cultural capability, placements, micro-credentials and learner-owned evidence?

11. Conclusion

Skills passports are coming in some form, or at least the pressures that produce them are already visible: skills-first hiring, degree inflation, labour shortages, workforce mobility, digital identity, verifiable credentials, micro-credentials, recognition of prior learning, and employer demand for better signals.

But the passport is not the point. The passport is only the container. The learner capability graph is the substance, and the ownership question is decisive.

If institutions own the graph, the future record risks becoming another transcript.

If platforms own the graph, it risks becoming another product.

If employers own the graph, it risks becoming another screening device.

If the state owns the graph, it risks becoming another administrative instrument.

But if the learner owns the graph, the system changes shape: institutions can issue, employers can verify, assessors can judge, mentors, kaumātua, supervisors, peers and communities can attest, AI can help organise evidence, funders can read aggregated patterns, and platforms can carry signals.

The learner remains the custodian of the whole. That is the architecture worth building.

Do not wait for the passport. Build the graph beneath it.

And hold the line:

The learner owns the graph. Everyone else signs their part.

Key questions

Who should own a learner’s capability graph?

What kinds of evidence should be verified, assessed, attested, or learner-supplied?

How can capability become portable without flattening cultural, relational, community-held, or lived-experience knowledge?

What parts of New Zealand’s existing system already resemble skills passport infrastructure?

Where should New Zealand prototype the evidence layer before a generic national passport appears?

What would a Māori-centred learner capability graph need to protect that a generic skills passport might miss?

Continue exploring

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Tags

Skills passports

Learner capability graph

Digital credentials

Learning and employment records

Micro-credentials

Recognition of prior learning

Capability visibility

Learner sovereignty

Māori data sovereignty

Workforce development

NZQA

TEC

Tahatū

Industry Skills Boards

Hauora Māori

AI and education

Credential trust

References

International skills passport, learner record and digital credential sources

France: Caisse des Dépôts / Mon Compte Formation. Passeport de compétences. Official public service information describing the French skills passport, its Mon Compte Formation access point, Caisse des Dépôts implementation role, FranceConnect+ security and learner-controlled publication. Source links: https://competences.moncompteformation.gouv.fr/espace-public/; https://www.caissedesdepots.fr/eclairage/actualites/le-passeport-de-competences-est-ouvert; https://politiques-sociales.caissedesdepots.fr/actualites/ouverture-du-passeport-de-competences

United States / California: Governor of California. California’s Career Passport to connect qualified workers to employment, with or without a four-year degree. Official announcement confirming the 17 June–24 August 2026 pilot demonstration, real-user testing, selected vendors and the Career Passport’s purpose as a skills and experience signalling tool. Source link: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/06/17/californias-career-passport-to-connect-qualified-workers-to-employment-with-or-without-a-four-year-degree/

Singapore: SkillsFuture Singapore / MySkillsFuture. Careers & Skills Passport. Official guidance describing the Careers & Skills Passport as a service that consolidates skills, employment, qualification and certification records and supports sharing verified data with employers and job portals. Source links: https://www.myskillsfuture.gov.sg/csp; https://www.myskillsfuture.gov.sg/content/portal/en/career-resources/career-resources/education-career-personal-development/your-careers-and-skills-verified-the-power-of-csp.html

Philippines: Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. TESDA unveils Skills Passport, an all-in-one app linking Filipinos to training, scholarships, and jobs. Official launch notice confirming the February 2026 launch and core features including verified certificates, training records, QR-enabled résumé, job opportunities, learning paths, scholarship access and PhilSys validation. Source link: https://www.tesda.gov.ph/Media/NewsDetail/20452

United Kingdom: Skills England / GOV.UK. Annual Skills Report and Sectoral Skills Needs Assessments 2026; clean energy skills passport materials; employability-skills commentary. Official sources confirming Skills England’s skills-system role, shared skills-language work and sector-specific skills passport activity, while not yet establishing a settled national learner-record architecture. Source links: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skills-england-annual-skills-report-and-sectoral-skills-needs-assessments-2026; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skills-england-annual-skills-report-and-sectoral-skills-needs-assessments-2026/skills-england-annual-skills-report-2026; https://skillsengland.blog.gov.uk/

European Union: European Commission / Europass. European Digital Credentials for Learning and Europass issuing guidance. Official sources describing infrastructure to create, issue, view, store, share and verify European Digital Credentials for Learning, including electronically sealed records, learner wallet storage and verification. Source links: https://europass.europa.eu/en/european-digital-credentials; https://europass.europa.eu/en/issuing-digital-credentials

OECD. A Skills-First Labour Market. OECD report examining skills-first hiring, talent management and skills development, including common skills languages, modular learning, micro-credentials, career guidance, skills passports and recognition of prior learning. Source link: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/a-skills-first-labour-market_2e1b85f0-en.html

New Zealand policy and infrastructure sources

NZQA. New Zealand Record of Achievement and NZRoA verification guidance. Official sources describing NZRoA as the record of New Zealand qualifications, micro-credentials and standards achieved, and providing a verification tool. Source links: https://www2.nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications-and-standards/access-your-results/new-zealand-record-of-achievement/; https://www2.nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications-and-standards/access-your-results/verify/

NZQA. About micro-credentials and Applying for micro-credentials and changes to micro-credentials. Official guidance describing NZQA quality-assured micro-credentials as small, stand-alone, assessed awards on the NZQCF, generally carrying 1–40 credits and requiring evidence of need. Source links: https://www2.nzqa.govt.nz/tertiary/approval-accreditation-and-registration/micro-credentials/; https://www2.nzqa.govt.nz/tertiary/approval-accreditation-and-registration/micro-credentials/applying-for-micro-credentials-and-changes/

NZQA. Recognition of learning for credit. Official guidance distinguishing credit recognition and transfer from recognition of prior learning, and describing RPL as formal assessment of current and relevant knowledge and skills gained through prior learning for the purpose of awarding credit. Source link: https://www2.nzqa.govt.nz/tertiary/recognition-of-learning-for-credit/

Tertiary Education Commission. TEO-developed micro-credentials: funding and fees. Funding guidance for tertiary education organisations, including prioritisation of micro-credentials that meet industry and community need, support employment outcomes and upskilling, and meet investment criteria. Source link: https://www.tec.govt.nz/funding/funding-guidance/micro-credentials/teo-developed-micro-credentials

Tahatū Career Navigator. Credit work or study towards a qualification and related learner guidance. Public guidance explaining recognition of prior learning and credit recognition/transfer, including examples of evidence learners may need to provide. Source links: https://tahatu.govt.nz/study-and-training/getting-qualifications/credit-work-or-study-towards-a-qualification; https://tahatu.govt.nz/study-and-training/getting-qualifications/about-micro-credentials

Tertiary Education Commission / Ministry of Education. Industry Skills Boards and VET redesign materials. Official sources describing Industry Skills Boards as industry-led bodies responsible for qualifications, credentials, standards, programme endorsement, assessment quality assurance, workforce advice and industry collaboration, with eight ISBs operational from 1 January 2026. Source links: https://www.tec.govt.nz/strategic-initiatives/vocational-education-system/changes-to-the-vocational-education-and-training-vet-system/industry-skills-boards; https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/strategies-policies-and-programmes/tertiary-and-further-education/redesign-vocational-education-and-training-system

Digital.govt.nz / Beehive. Government App Programme and Making it faster, easier to issue digital credentials. Official sources describing the Govt.nz app digital wallet, accredited digital credentials, progressive release during 2026, the Government Credential Issuance Platform and voluntary use. Source links: https://www.digital.govt.nz/programmes-and-projects/products-and-services/government-app-programme/; https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/making-it-faster-easier-issue-digital-credentials

Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora. Health Workforce Implementation Plan. Official material describing the 2024/25–2026/27 workforce implementation plan and its alignment with the New Zealand Health Plan | Te Pae Waenga and the Primary Care Tactical Action Plan. Source link: https://www.healthnz.govt.nz/publications/health-workforce-implementation-plan

Māori data sovereignty, governance and data ethics sources

Te Mana Raraunga. Principles of Māori Data Sovereignty. Defines Māori data, Māori data sovereignty and Māori data governance, and sets out principles including rangatiratanga, whakapapa, whanaungatanga, kotahitanga, manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga. Source link: https://www.temanararaunga.maori.nz/principles-of-maori-data-sovereignty

Te Kāhui Raraunga. Māori Data Governance Model. Māori-designed public service model treating Māori data as a taonga and supporting Te Tiriti-consistent, values-led governance centred on Māori needs, priorities and self-determination. Source links: https://www.kahuiraraunga.io/maoridatagovernance; https://www.waikato.ac.nz/assets/Uploads/Research/Research-institutes-centres-and-groups/Institutes/Te-Ngira-Institute-for-Population-Research/Maori_Data_Governance_Model.pdf

Stats NZ. Ngā Tikanga Paihere. Data ethics framework supporting respectful, ethical and culturally appropriate use of microdata, including responsiveness to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and relationships with whānau, hapū, iwi, Māori advisors and affected communities. Source link: https://www.stats.govt.nz/integrated-data/apply-to-use-microdata-for-research/how-to-apply-nga-tikanga-paihere-to-microdata-research-projects/

Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora. Health information governance and Health Information Security Framework. Guidance on legal, secure and effective handling of personal health information and health information security. Source links: https://www.healthnz.govt.nz/health-professionals/guidance-standards/topic/data-and-standards/health-information-standards/approved-health-information-standards/information-governance; https://www.healthnz.govt.nz/health-professionals/guidance-standards/topic/digital-technologies/cyber-security-hub/health-security-frameworks

Internal working sources

The following working artefacts informed the briefing’s synthesis but should not be treated as primary public evidence.

National Skills Passports & Learning Employment Records: State of Play 2025–2026. Comparative working scan across France, California, Singapore, the Philippines, the UK, EU/Cedefop and OECD.

New Zealand Skills Passport Policy Scan. Working scan identifying New Zealand proto-skills-passport components and the missing learner-owned, workforce-facing operating model.

Regional Skills Passport Demonstrator for Māori Health Workforce Pathways. Working concept note proposing a Māori health workforce demonstrator using verified, assessed, attested and learner-supplied evidence categories.

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