Überblick
"(...) 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. (,,,)"