Adding Value to Competency-Based Training

National Centre for Vocational Education Research Ltd. P.O. Box 8288, Stational Arcade, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia. Tel: +61-8-230-8400; Fax: +61-8-212-3436; e-mail: ncver@ncver.edu.au; Web site: http://www.ncver.edu.au

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Australian Government Department of Employment and Workplace Relations

Competency Based Education; Vocational Education; Foreign Countries; Skill Development; Employment Potential; Barriers; Affordances; Secondary School Students; Apprenticeships; Postsecondary Education; Student Evaluation

Australia; United Kingdom (England); United Kingdom (Scotland); United Kingdom (Northern Ireland); Germany; Finland; Singapore

978-1-922801-05-0

Competency-based training (CBT) is the key training approach used in the vocational education and training sector in Australia. Competency-based training is an approach to vocational education and training (VET) designed to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to achieve competency. It focuses on an individual's mastery of skill, whereby an individual is deemed competent or not yet competent in that skill. For the last three decades or so, CBT has been fundamental to how accredited VET is delivered in Australia, and over this time both advocates and critics of this approach have emerged. For the research presented in this report, the authors were interested in the strengths and weaknesses of CBT as it is currently applied to the Australian VET system and whether there is cause to consider a broader approach to defining and describing competence and, hence, considering how teaching and learning in VET is most effectively delivered and assessed.

ERIC

2023

ED625527