Expertise and Competence in Further and Adult Education

Abstract

Since the idea of competence-based assessment seems to have originated in performance-based teacher education in America in the 1960s (Tuxworth, 1989), I suppose it was only a matter of time before its unremitting spread throughout the whole sphere of vocational education and training (VET) in this country via the work of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) would extend to the professional preparation of teachers. (...) I want to question and point out some dangers in the uncritical acceptance of competence-based models by teacher educators and trainers in the further and adult sector. It seems to me that such schemes display all the hallmarks of what Collins (1991) has referred to as the 'narrow technicist approach' to education which 'defines useful knowledge in the light of bureacratic and corporate needs' (p.45). Not only is there little to be gained by redescribing the objectives of teacher education and training in terms of competences but, more importantly, there is a great danger that this will lead to professional de-skilling and the erosion of autonomy (Betts, 1992). TS - CrossRef