Abstract:

In their studies of the distinguishing features of competence-based education that has gained importance in the context of the Bologna Process, scholars tend to emphasize either its benefits and possibilities or its limitations and disadvantages. I, however, am interested in interdependence of these pros and cons.

The article takes a close look at dialectically interrelated pros and cons both of competence-based education and the concept of universal competences (as the Russian alternative to terms "generic skills," "soft skills," "key competences"). I focus on those of them that are prone to discussion and, as such, can be interesting and rewarding for further discourse in this subject area. To accomplish these objectives, I use the following methods: Comparative analysis as well as dialectic and diachronic approaches.

This study has shown that in competence-based education, the innovative status should be assigned to the place of competences among the educational priorities rather than to competences as such. As a result, the competences that used to be mastered by the few have become universal. The downside of the process is that the increasing diversity of student cohorts unleashes two opposite responses: Teachers are not satisfied with students’ education levels, which are too low to achieve the predefined competences, while students complain about the unwillingness of universities to adapt their education programs to their level.

I have pointed out that competence-based education, while creating conditions for learning outside formal educational settings, is a foothold for lifelong learning and learning society; however, this advantage (captured in the concept of universal competences) encounters a limitation involving the conflict between the self-development promotion and concern for others.

I have found that competence-based education, in general, and the concept of universal competences, in particular, reproduce and remap Dewey’s pedagogy, bridging the gap between education and socialization, teaching and upbringing, the thought and the action, theory and practice. However, while implying unrestricted development of a student’s potential (as provided for by their constructivist nature), they lock a student into the confines of the ideal graduate profile, thus narrowing down the opportunities for generating the student’s alternative identities, which are essential in the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world.

I have found that the bureaucratic form of implementation of the competence approach in educational realities promotes its perception as the technology of power in terms of Foucault’s concept. In addition, the competence approach, following the human capital theory in its focus on individual factors of success, contributes to a simplified view of the existence of the direct and simple correlation between the level of development (through education) of competences (first and foremost, universal) and the level of personal and social wellbeing.

At the end of the article, I conclude that the dialectical combination of competence-based education pros and cons is based on its ideological ethos converting the Desired (by society) into the Required (for a student) and causing its duality (serving both humanitarian goals of education and political, neoliberal goals).

Keywords:

Competence-based education, education program, generic skills, higher education, key competences, pedagogy, soft skills, universal competences.