METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF THE COMPETENCE APPROACH TO THE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ TRAINING IN UKRAINE

Competence is viewed to be the key point of the university training according to the Bologna declaration of the European education space transformation. The concept of the competence requires scientific defining which is in most cases determined by the methodological background dominating in a certain educational area. Another urgent problem to be solved is the differentiation of the competence from other bordering concepts such as expertise, proficiency, etc. Therefore it is stressed that the uniformity of the notions and the key terminology used to define educational processes would facilitate international communication between scientists and practitioners.
To see possible problems of new concepts’ implementation and to find optimal decisions, it is urgent to analyze the methodological background of the educational area which is expected to adopt innovational ideas. So it seems to be important to analyze Ukrainian educational potential on the way of Ukraine’s joining the European educational space.
The predominant theory in the Ukrainian education is the activity-oriented approach which is aimed at the development of the student’s knowledge, habits and skills. Any human’s activity is scrutinized mostly as a process which can be presented by the complex of the interconnected psychological mechanisms. The duration of the activity is traced from the starting point such as personal intrinsic needs and motives up to the activity results.
Another influential scientific trend at all levels of education in Ukraine is a personality-oriented approach. Its purpose is to develop a student’s personality in the complex unity of his/her motives, interests and values.
As for the reality of the students’ training, the observations and personal interviews demonstrate that graduates face a number of problems when coming into the professional environment. The real life problems are mostly determined by the fact that students obtain a vague idea of the profession they are prepared for and of the professional tasks they are expected to fulfill. Therefore the development of the students’ professional competence in the unity of their knowledge, habits and skills, as well as personalized experience gained at different levels of education is viewed to be an approach which is intended to break the border between the education and real life profession.
Practicality as a fundamental feature of the competence approach is contrasted to the theoretical vector of the activity-oriented approach, while personality-oriented teaching reinforced by technologies of e-learning can contribute to the development of the students’ professional competence.
Among barriers to the competence approach implementation into the university, so-called “corporative selfishness” is discriminated. Meanwhile the lack of the administrative bodies and teachers’ competence to change traditional way of their interaction with students and habits of conducting educational process prevents their eagerness to bring sufficient results on the way of innovations.