36. How do competency standards relate to curriculum design?

The transposition process of occupational descriptions usually included in a competency standard in order to design a training curriculum is one of the areas that should be developed and until very recently they have little methodological references.

Competency standards are obviously fundamental in the drawing up of training curricula. However, the process of curriculum design based on competency standards is by no means a lineal or automatic process.

Among other things, the curriculum design of a particular programme does not need to “provide everything”; it should try to identify what is essential to develop the required competencies.(1) Some questions give great support to the curriculum design:

What competencies need to be developed? What knowledge should be applied? What skills should the person master? What attitudes should the person show?

A curriculum is usually –and we should say: necessarily– structured in modules. Competency-based training is mainly possible by means of modular organisation of curricula. The first attempts to link competency units and training modules actually took place in curriculum design. In general, this is the

By explicit curriculum we mean a deliberate group of learning opportunities offered to a person or a group of persons for a particular development. The hidden curriculum (implicit) is made up by the institutional atmosphere, the management style of the educational centre, human relationships. Irigoin; Vargas (2002).

 

The term module aims at flexibility to be structured in association with by means of the ability to combine one element with another, and at the same time maintain the independence by which it may exist on its own. Irigoin (2002).

first attempt of transposition that seems to be useful to develop, although experience shows that a competency unit may produce one or many modules. In any case, like in the competencies analysis, the term competency unit implies
a meaningful labour result. In curriculum design, the module should make sense on its own and have the ability to be structured in association with others when building up a particular curriculum trail.

In general, all the components of a competency standard contribute with valuable information for the curriculum design. Although it is not possible to think of a direct link between competency units and modules or between competency elements and learning objectives, it is feasible, through a sensible analysis, to achieve training curricula taking into account the conditions of competency standards.

An aspect which requires special attention is that referred to the shaping up of attitudes and personal abilities such as the initiative, the willingness for cooperation, the creation of a positive working atmosphere, creativeness and problem-solving. These attitudes are usually created more by means of the educational strategies used than with the contents themselves. Remember the concept of hidden curriculum; it is very unlikely that the initiative ability is developed if no questions are asked, no problems are raised and if team work and the search for alternatives to different situations are not promoted throughout the training process.

The key issues underlying the creation of personal competencies are: pleasant and educational atmospheres, qualified and motivated teachers, problemsolving-based learning, the use of several pedagogical means and training techniques.

Description of some methodologies of curriculum design

Several methodologies will now be described, for instance those used by INEM, SENA, CONALEP, SENAI and finally the labour competencies programme which is being drawn up in Argentina.

According to the model of occupational vocational training from INEM, Spain,(2) this process is called “derivation of training contents based on vocational profiles”. The vocational profile has been defined by inputs such as: occupational analysis, an occupational future revision which ends up defining vocational areas and great groups of occupations related to a process or a productive activity with vocational contents in common.

Besides, for each occupation, a vocational profile is described by defining the occupation, the general competency for the occupation, its competency units, its vocational accomplishments (elements of competency), execution criteria and vocational abilities. These aspects are similar to the ones used by the English and Mexican system.

Based on this vocational profile, training contents are drawn up by establishing the necessary theoretical and practical professional knowledge for a competent performance of units. In order to do this, the unit of competency is taken as the grounds for the analysis and the following questions are answered.

What does the worker need to know in order to establish the theoretical knowledge?

What does the worker need to know how to do in order to establish the practical knowledge?

How does the worker need to know how to be and act in order to specify the required attitudes and behaviours?

After that, training contents are structured in professional modules. In general, the relationship created between the module and the competency unit is such that one or more professional modules can correspond to a unit.

 

 

 

 

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1 Irigoin, M.; Vargas, F.; Competencia laboral…, op. cit.
2 INEM, Metodología para la ordenación de la Formación Profesional Ocupacional. Madrid, 1995.

 

 

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