Of Cabbages and Key Skills: exploding the mythology of core transferable skills in post‐school education

Abstract

The concepts of core, generic or key skills are now ubiquitous in educational discourse and an integral part of recommendations for education and training programmes from school to university. It is our contention that-in the sense of free-standing, contextindependent abilities-such skills are without philosophical or empirical support and are entirely illusory. Although the ideas of integrated core units or common learning experiences underpinning the post-school curriculum have some educational justification, the pursuit of general transferable core/key skills is a wasteful chimera-hunt and should now be abandoned.

Developing work placements in a discipline-oriented education

“…However, some lack understanding of why they should invest in learning of other subjects or transferable skills since these are seldom emphasized during courses, in course evaluations or in academic diplomas (Hyland and Johnson, 1998). The importance of also acquiring non-biological competences during higher education was highlighted from results in a survey of 229 biologists in the work-force (Hole et al, 2016).…”

Business, as usual: the policy priorities of the World Bank's discourses on youth unemployment, and the global financial crisis

“…The long history of objections from employers, employers' organisations and government departments that young people's skills are in general poor matches for the needs of business is well-documented, and the many highly developed rebuttals have done remarkably little to significantly assuage this thinking (Gleeson, 1987;Avis, Bloomer, Esland, Gleeson & Hodgkinson (eds), 1996;Hyland & Johnson, 1998;Payne, 2004;Hutton, 2005). The WB continues unabated to attribute youth unemployment to inadequate skills.…”

Competence-based Approaches to the Assessment of Professional Accountancy Training Work Experience Requirements: The ICAS Experience

“…Assessing whether individuals are competent involves collecting evidence and making judgements based on performance criteria under conditions as realistic as possible (Jessup, 1991). The majority of institutions simply recognise 'appropriate' work experience if a potential member undertakes work in particular areas under the supervision of a qualified member, with no systematic approach to the assessment of these skills (Hyland and Johnson, 1998;Karreman, 2002). Therefore, despite the recommendation of IFAC in IES 5 (IFAC, 2003a) that some competences are likely to be more easily acquired through practical experience and that member bodies must have in place assessment procedures to ensure that candidates are appropriately qualified, (IES6, IFAC, 2003a), very few bodies attempt to assess competence in the workplace.…”

“…The other UK bodies, in line with many educationalists, questioned the applicability of such an approach at the professional level (Eraut, 1994;Hyland and Johnson, 1998;Purcell, 2001;Hagar and Gonczi, 2002) but responded in part by independently defining their own standards of professional competence (Thomson, 1995).…”