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The concepts of vocational competence and competency: False friends in international policy learning

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"(...) International cooperation in vocational education and training (VET) has gained great importance in recent years. Approaches from the German- and English-speaking countries are particularly well known around the world. A key feature of why these two approaches gain so much international popularity is that they purport to be very closely oriented to workplace situations and train practice-relevant skills. A normative movement that has influenced the German VET is ‘action orientation’. Since then, compe-tence-based VET has shaped the design of VET (cf. Jenewein 2010). VET in the ‘English-speaking’ world has a concept which is based on ‘skills’ and can be seen as narrowly defined task-based compe-tencies (cf. Brockmann et al. 2008). At first glance, both approaches seem to be similar because of the words used which are similar: ‘competence’ (Kompetenz) and ‘competency’. There is a danger that both concepts are treated as interchangeable synonyms (cf. Kuhlee/Steib/Winch 2022). This paper aims to present and contrast the origins of the two approaches, including their normative characteristics. The philosophical dimensions of the two approaches will be analysed for similarities and differences. This comparison can point out the dangers of mixing elements from different concepts, e.g., in the context of international VET cooperation. (,,,)"

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Titel:
The concepts of vocational competence and competency: False friends in international policy learning
Autor_in:
Li, Junmin; Hodge, Steven; Knight, Elisabeth
Herausgeber_in:
Bill Esmond; Thilo J. Ketschau; Johannes K. Schmees, Christian Steib, Volker Wedekind
Gruppe/n:
Sonstiges
Erscheinungsjahr:
2023
Reihe:
In: bwp@ Spezial 19 | August 2023: Retrieving and recontextualising VET theory

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