Personal development planning: A different kind of competency

Abstract

During the last decade there has been an increasing recognition in the worlds of business and education that employees are their most important asset. Governments, too, throughout the industrialised world have begun to acknowledge the links between successful economic development in a competitive environment and a committed, flexible workforce. Initially, attempts to promote the efficiency and effectiveness centred upon job analysis and the parallel development of ‘job‐related competences’. After considerable flirtation with this, more progressive companies ‐ such as Ford and the Rover Group in the United Kingdom ‐ realised the need to recognise workers as whole persons with lifelong learning needs. Profiles and portfolios were developed and employees now play a much greater part in determining their own learning needs over time. Personal development as part of professional development is being legitimised. It is no accident that 1996 has been designated the Year of Lifelong Learning by the European Community. The education establishment, meanwhile, has lagged behind. Despite growing rhetoric, the means of supporting lifelong learning among teachers are by and large related almost entirely to those which focus upon serving the system. Notions of the teacher as person as well as the teacher as professional, with all that is implied for progression, continuity and balance of support for development over a career span, are limited. Competences of a functional kind are being developed; and there is a danger that policy makers will adopt a cul‐de‐sac approach which will be counter productive to their aims of increasing efficiency and effectiveness. The research and development project reported in this article was funded by the UK's Department for Education, through the School Management Task Force. It represents the development and piloting of review and planning materials designed to provide support for the lifelong learning of the teacher as person and professional. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.