Competency Based Education: The Irony – A Narrowing of Critical Thinking and Voices

• In Event: "Rethinking Competency-Based Learning, Accountability, and Equity"

Proposal

Competency Based Education: The Irony – A Narrowing of Critical Thinking and Voices

Over the past 20 years Competency-based Education (CBE) has taken hold in education reforms efforts globally as part of globalization and internalization tendencies in education. This trend has had both die-hard advocates on one hand and vocal critics on the other. Both sides view CBE as not simply a delivery mode but reform that challenges long-held conventions regarding how curricula are created, instruction is designed and delivered, and skills and knowledge are assessed. With a clear economic undertone, in combination with a discourse of ‘lifelong learning’, and a focus on the centrality of the learner and an emphasis on active forms of pedagogy this movement has been strongly reinforced by international education policy actors including the OECD, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Bank and other International Organizations as well as the EU, USAID and other aid agencies . In this context, decisions concerning the philosophy, structure, and content of curricula entail many dilemmas and contradictions.

The promoters of CBE insist that it ensures that students master critical knowledge and develop relevant skills before becoming eligible for graduation or moving on to the next learning target rather than simply occupying a seat for a certain amount of time. They also insist that CBE facilitates a move away from an explicit specification of content towards a more generic, skills-based approach; a greater emphasis on the centrality of the learner; and greater autonomy for teachers in developing the curriculum that is necessary for modern technologically driven economies. They aver that it addresses the issues of curriculum overload and tailors curriculum towards specific student ‘key competencies’ or learning outcomes enabling a shift from an input-based education (content) to output-based results (learning outcomes) .

For the critics, it is a global neoliberal imaginary linking educational change with economic development that has facilitated the spread of competency-based reforms globally, from Afghanistan to Norway to New Zealand and beyond. They also argue that international organizations and aid agencies have promoted the adoption of competency-based curricula and educational approaches as a means for countries to be economically competitive ignoring its negative impact and bifurcation of educational systems along the lines of privilege and advantage within national and subnational spaces . And, that it has tended to channel students into narrow vocational offerings to serve immediate employer needs and is less focused on preparing learners with the flexibility needed for a more uncertain future.

Another contrasting view concerns the impact of CBE on teachers. The advocates argue that it empowers teachers providing them with more autonomy and flexibility. The critics, however, contend that it prescribes curricular content and teaching methods in detail forcing teachers to become technicians, carrying out a predefined process.

This paper synthesis different reviews and reflections on curricula and CBE reforms including in Afghanistan, Kenya and New Zealand among others to highlight the latter position that most recent curricula reform limits critical thinking, true collaboration and dissenting voices while exacerbating educational inequality. The paper further contributes to the debate on CBE curricula highlighting that while these curricula accord some importance to knowledge in their statements of policy intent, they are generally characterized by a lack of coherence and mixed messages about the place of knowledge .It also explores the role of international actors in policy transfer noting that educational policy borrowing and travelling does not follow a linear path, instead the context in which those policies are implemented shapes what policies and to what extent they are implemented. In addition to acknowledging that different actors interpret one and the same phenomenon (e.g., Finnish success in education) or discourse (global discourse on student-centered learning) differently, it is important to take into account the temporal dimension of global education policy (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004).

Author

• Jordan Naidoo Perumal Naidoo, Self employed