Competences in VET 

If you browse looking for a definition of competence, you will find that it is most often connected to jobs or to employee performance. But what is a competence?

According to Escudero (2008) a competent professional is someone who is able to "perform intelligent actions to complex problems in a particular context". This implies that such an action is the result of a judgement based on decisions and interpretations relating to previously learned skills, attitudes, procedures and ethical beliefs, that do not have to be explicitly related to the problem.

So, competence indicates sufficiency of knowledge and skills that enable someone to act in a wide variety of situations, i.e. to apply them in a context. 

According to Department of Training and Workforce Development (2012), in VET, individuals are considered competent when they are able to consistently apply their knowledge and skills to the standard of performance required in the workplace.

If you want to read further about competences have a look at the following definitions here [LINKS TO LOCALISED DEFINITIONS - SHORT ONES]

Watch the following short video and note down your own understanding of the concept of competences. Can you relate it to the definitions you read above?

What is Competence?

The video is subtitled. If subtitles don't show up by default, click on the Captions button in the YouTube player window (lower right cluster; second icon from the left), and select English as the language.

Time: 15 min