This article considers the concept of Competence as applied to educational theory and policy, and illuminates the possibility of significant variations in meaning. Referring to Wittgenstein's distinctions between transitive and intransitive uses of notions and Holland's description of mastery, the article argues in favour of two senses in which someone can be described as being competent: i) as expressive of a value judgment; and ii) as pointing to a person's (formal) qualifications. While the latter opens a path towards different forms of measurements of competence, being competent as a value judgment eludes any such treatment. Making this distinction, it is argued that competence is a less illuminative theoretical term than, for example, the pair of concepts Bildung versus Ausbildung ((self-)subjectivation vs training), that has been used in the Continental tradition in order to describe a similar distinction. With examples from educational contexts, the article demonstrates that the moment educational theory is using one word for two meanings, this central distinction in education is either concealed or forgotten. Focusing on competence purely as an empirically assessable notion risks playing into the hands of instrumentalising education.
This article discusses theoretically and philosophically difficulties in defining the notion of competence. 'Competence' is a key-concept in today's educational discussion, where it combines both a psychological meaning of an inner disposition, and a sociological meaning as a category that organises tasks and power-relations in public and private institutions. A short historical overview shows that 'competence' has a complex etymology that explains these different layers of possible usages and the different ontological and epistemological assumptions that arise from them. Still, the article argues that an ambiguous notion is not a notion with an indistinct meaning. In concrete situations, 'competence' just has different meanings. Inspired by Wittgenstein, the article takes a philosophical view on science and methodology and argues that the strive to define 'competence' unequivocally can be understood in different ways. Notions have to be defined unambiguously to make empirical measurements possible. But definitions are running the risk to ignore important meaningful usages for the sake of what is empirically possible to measure and what kind of political interests there are in measuring certain aspects of a complex notions. Finally, it is argued that an ambiguous notion implies risks of undermining critical voices in the discussion about global educational policy.
Comparative measures of learning outcomes and professional actions are set out to indicate accountability of VET. Individualisation and fragmentation of education emphasise counselling of students as support for their learning. The purpose of the article is to identify how counsellor and teacher practitioners perceive opportunities and challenges in merging their pedagogical and fundamental conventions of their work with structures and frameworks of accountability constituting their practice. Theoretically the study is influenced by socio-cultural perspectives. The analysis follows an abductive approach, reporting on the results from ethnographic observations of guidance counselling (N=29) within VET and subsequent interviews (N=12). We ask how the tension between the immeasurable and measurable contextualises within counselling, and how counselling is construed by counsellors and teachers. The results suggest adherence to quality measures in VET exchanged processes of human interactions and agreements with assumptions of outcomes. The effort of reaching the measures led to failure in achieving the purpose of what the targets are meant to underscore, portraying a disillusion of control. Accountability addressed a critical point concerning responsibility and evoked professional ethical dilemmas for the practitioners. Certain categorised actions of counselling processes were made externally visible by documentation but depleted counselling as learning processes inwards.
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