Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based

Training

Oxford Handbooks Online

Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond
Competency-Based Training
Leesa Wheelahan
The Oxford Handbook of Skills and Training
Edited by John Buchanan, David Finegold, Ken Mayhew, and Chris Warhurst

Print Publication Date: Feb 2017

Subject: Business and Management, Technology and Knowledge Management
Online Publication Date: Mar 2017 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199655366.013.30

Abstract and Keywords

This article critiques models of competency-based training in vocational education and

training in Anglophone countries and contrasts it to ‘kompetenz’ in Germanic countries. It
identifies six key problems with Competency-Based Training (CBT): first, CBT is tied to
specific ensembles of workplace roles and requirements; second, the outcomes of
learning are tied to descriptions of work as it currently exists; third, CBT does not provide
adequate access to underpinning knowledge; fourth, CBT is based on the simplistic and
behaviourist notion that processes of learning are identical with the skills that are to be
learnt; fifth, the credibility of a qualification is based on trust, not what it says a person
can do; and sixth, CBT is based on a notion of the human actor as the supervised worker.
The article argues generic skills are not the alternative, and it uses a ‘modified’ version of
the capabilities approach as the conceptual basis for qualifications.

Keywords: behaviourism, capabilities approach, competency-based training, generic skills, kompetenz, skills,
vocational education and training

Introduction
NATIONAL governments around the world and international government organizations such
as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been seduced by the siren
call of competency-based training as a ‘cure’ for ‘problems’ with skills. Competency-based
training (CBT) will, it is believed: solve problems in poor and rich nations alike even
though their problems are fundamentally different; support basic economic development
and cutting edge innovation; ‘upskill’ the low skilled and high skilled; provide the basis

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
Training
for educational and occupational mobility; and, support people from disadvantaged
backgrounds to have their existing skills recognized and gain new skills. In his critique of
CBT, Norris (1991, 331) explains that competence:

is an El Dorado of a word with a wealth of meanings and the appropriate

connotations for utilitarian times. The language of competency-based approaches
to education and training is compelling in its common-sense and rhetorical force.
Words like ‘competence’ and ‘standards’ are good words, modern words;
everybody is for standards and everyone is against incompetence.

The premise is simple and seductive: align the outcomes of training with the
requirements of work, teach (or train) to those outcomes, and evaluate training through
competent performance at work. In Australia, vocational education and training (VET)
qualifications are based on ‘units of competency’, and each unit describes a discrete
workplace requirement. Proponents of CBT argue that this is transparent, evidence
based, responsive to ‘industry’ needs, and measurable because it is based on observable
(p. 637) performance. A complicating factor is that the word ‘competence’ does indeed

mean many things in different contexts. For example, Anglophone countries such as
Australia and England have a narrow and restricted approach to competence that is task-
focused, compared to richer and more holistic occupationally based notions in Northern
Europe (Bohlinger 2007–8). Unfortunately, it is the Anglophone notions that are used in
aid programmes to poor countries that are imperialistically coming to dominate
international policy and government discussions. Anglophone notions of competency are
critiqued in this chapter.

This chapter1 argues that CBT contributes to fragmenting skills and work, that it deskills
workers, and that it does not provide the basis for educational or occupational
progression. It argues that we need to rethink the conceptual basis of qualifications in
VET, and it suggests that the ‘capabilities approach’ that has been developed by
economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen (1993, 1999, 2009) and the philosopher
Martha Nussbaum (2000, 2011) offers a promising alternative, although with some
caveats. The first section discusses the ‘social settlement’ in VET to explain why
competency training was introduced and it argues that the ‘skills problem’ has been
misdiagnosed. This is followed by a discussion of the problems with CBT, whilst the next
section explains why ‘generic skills’ cannot overcome the problems with CBT. The final
section outlines what the capabilities approach is and how it may provide a conceptual
basis for VET qualifications.

The Social Settlement in VET

The structure of VET, the way skill is envisaged, and the relationship between VET and
work are always the outcome of a settlement between civil society (employers, labour,
and occupational groups), the state, and educational institutions. Keating (2008, 3)

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
Training
argues that power is not equally shared in this relationship and that the key relationship
is between the state and civil society. This is particularly clear in VET where educational
institutions have less autonomy than in the higher education (HE) or the schools sectors,
both of which are supported by very powerful, often overlapping, interests. Elite schools
and universities train the social elites, are embedded in them, and mobilize them when
needed. VET doesn’t have friends like this; its relative lack of autonomy means that the
pressure brought to bear by the state and employers and unions is much more direct and
unmediated. And, whilst schools and HE are under pressure to be more relevant to the
needs of work, VET comes under particular scrutiny and criticism because it is meant to
deliver the skills that industry needs.

VET is always subject to critique because it must serve a range of different

(p. 638)

purposes and different interests, and the interests of all constituents are not the same
(Keep 2007, 2012). Clarke and Winch (2007, 1) explain that governments focus on the
productive capacity of society; individuals focus on preparation for their working life and
progression in the labour market; and employers focus on the immediate needs of their
firms. They explain that these are conflicting interests, and as a result, the VET system
represents a compromise and at the same time reflects the power attached to each of
these different interests (Clarke and Winch 2007, 1).

Consequently, there have always been complaints about VET and always will be. Hyland
(1999, 99) says that employers in the United Kingdom have been complaining about
education and training since at least the time of the Paris Exhibition in 1867 when they
argued that they were falling behind their industrial competitors. Debates over the extent
to which VET should be directly tied to the needs of work are also not new. Hyland goes
on to say that in 1889 the United Kingdom passed the Technical Instruction Act to
improve this situation, but in 1901 (1999, 99), Lord Haldane:

still felt the need to remind politicians that the country had to train the minds of our
people so they may be able to hold their own against the competition which is coming
forward at such an alarming rate.

Not much has changed and we are still having the same debates today. VET will always
be criticised, for three reasons. Firstly, if its purpose is primarily to prepare people for
work, then it will be found wanting as the demands of work change and as a consequence
of changing notions about appropriate preparation for work. Industries change at
different rates and in different ways, and employers within the same industry often have
different needs. It is not possible to reconcile these differences within one system.
Secondly, the nature of the social settlement is always subject to negotiation and contest
as the various constituents press for greater consideration of their concerns in response
to broader changes in society and the economy. Thirdly, problems in the economy and
mismatches between skills and work are attributed to problems with VET even though
the relationship between VET and work is mutually constitutive, and problems also arise
from ineffective deployment of skill in workplaces (Skills Australia 2010).

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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In other words, the skills ‘problem’ has been misdiagnosed (Keep 2012). Keep and James
(2012) explain that it is the structure of the demand side, or the structure of the labour
market and the economy, that is crucial in determining skill levels. Bad jobs provide poor
incentives for individuals to train or employers to invest in training. In our work, we have
found that the structure of the labour market shapes educational pathways and that the
relationship between education and specific jobs is very weak (Wheelahan et al. 2012).
Where there are strong occupational pathways, strong educational pathways will follow.
Apart from the regulated occupations where criteria for entry and progression are
specified by professional or occupational bodies, the Australian labour market is
segmented and has weak occupational pathways (Yu et al. 2012). The relative absence of
these pathways has been exacerbated by an increase in higher- and lower-skilled jobs,
and a decline in jobs at the intermediate level. VET cannot substitute for the absence
(p. 639) of occupational pathways and educational pathways created in the absence of

occupational pathways are mainly a transition from lower- to higher-level studies and less
a pathway to work. The policy implication of this analysis is that greater attention needs
to be paid to the structure of occupations, jobs, and work.

CBT is the outcome of a low trust social settlement. It was introduced as part of broader
neo-liberal reforms in the late 1980s and 1990s that sought to subsume education
(particularly VET) as an instrument of micro-economic reform to tie it more tightly and
directly to the needs of the economy. Reforms were seen to be needed because
educational institutions are putatively not sufficiently responsive to the needs of industry
and do not provide industry with the knowledge and skills that are needed. It is argued
that educational institutions focus on inputs and are supply driven, so they offer what
they think is important and not what the users (employers and individuals) think are
important. As Bjørnåvold and Coles (2007–8, 227) explain, ‘High on the reform agenda is
institutional reform prompted by inflexibility of the education and training system to
produce relevant programmes of learning.’ The imposition of CBT is meant to break the
power of institutions, teachers, and their unions and ensure education becomes ‘demand-
driven’. This was the explicit purpose of CBT in which learning outcomes are described as
workplace tasks and roles. The broader context of CBT was that it was ‘about giving
industry more say’ over the outcomes of qualifications in an industry-led system (Guthrie
2009). This is based on the notion that VET exists to serve industry as it currently exists,
and it is a misattribution to VET of the short-comings in the structure of the labour
market and in the way skills are deployed at work.

Competency-based Training
As in other countries, the introduction of competency-based training in Australia caused,
and is still causing, major controversy. Debates and controversies have led to
amendments in the definition of competency to address concerns. The current Australian

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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definition (Department of Industry Innovation Science Research and Tertiary Education
2011) is that:

Competency is the consistent application of knowledge and skill to the standard of

performance required in the workplace. It embodies the ability to transfer and
apply skills and knowledge to new situations and environments.

(Department of Industry Innovation Science Research and Tertiary Education

2011)

Efforts have been made to develop a broader and more holistic definition of competency.
The latest version of the Training Package Development Handbook (DIISRTE 2011) says
that:

Competency is a broader concept than the ability to perform individual workplace

tasks and comprises the application of all the specified technical and generic
(p. 640) knowledge and skills relevant for an occupation. Particularly at higher

qualification levels, competency may require a combination of higher order

knowledge and skills and involve complex cognitive and meta-cognitive processes
such as reflection, analysis, synthesis, generation of ideas, problem solving,
decision-making, conflict resolution, innovation, design, negotiation, strategic
planning and self-regulated learning.

However, whilst the changes to the definition of competency over the years have been
helpful, arguably CBT is intrinsically flawed because it is based on an atomistic notion of
work and knowledge and skills. There are six key problems with CBT.

1. Units of competency are still tied to the specific. The Training Package
Development Handbook explains that:

Each unit of competency identifies a discrete workplace requirement and

includes the knowledge and skills that underpin competency as well as
language, literacy and numeracy; and occupational health and safety
requirements …
Units of competency (DIISRTE 2011):
• are nationally agreed statements of the skills and knowledge required for
effective performance in a particular job or job function
• describe work outcomes
• can logically stand alone when applied in a work situation.

This is based on an atomisation of jobs in which jobs consist of an ensemble of workplace

roles and requirements, and VET qualifications are made up of a matching ensemble of
units of competence. CBT assumes that it is possible to break the whole down into
discrete components, that it is possible to describe all knowledge and skill in statements,
that knowledge and skills can be inferred from observation, and that the whole consists of
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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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adding up the parts (or different units of competency). It is assumed that the same units
of competency can be used and described independently of contexts. This fragmentation
is reflected in the composition of units of competency which include: elements of
competency, performance criteria, required knowledge and skills, a range statement, and
evidence guides. Such detailed specification is required because units of competency
describe the outcomes of learning independently of processes of learning. This process of
specification encourages reductive processes of learning that tick off outcomes rather
than holistic learning. Moreover, the unitization of knowledge and skills results in the lack
of a coherent knowledge base for a flexible workforce that is able to support change
(Brockmann et al. 2008, 236). It makes the development of a theoretical basis for
workplace practice more difficult by disaggregating elements of work rather than
emphasizing their interconnectedness.

2. The outcomes of learning are tied to descriptions of work as it currently exists.

They focus on the present (because outcomes must be related to a specific workplace
activity) and thus emphasize tradition and inhibit the development of (p. 641)
innovative knowledge and new forms of practice (Wheelahan 2010, 2012). This
results in:

[a]‌ rigid backward mapping approach, in which the state of the art on the
shop floor is the untouchable starting point for the definition of occupational
competencies, leading to routinised job descriptions, in which the proactive
and reflective worker is left out.
(Biemans et al. cited in Brockmann et al. 2008, 237)

3. CBT still does not provide adequate access to underpinning knowledge and it will
not whilst it is still tied to specific units of competency. Knowledge is still restricted
to that which is actually applied at work so that knowledge is tied to specific tasks
and roles in the workplace. The Training Package Development Handbook says that:

While knowledge must be expressed, units of competency, their elements or

performance criteria should not be entirely knowledge based unless a clear
and assessable workplace outcome is described. Knowledge in units of
competency:
• should be in context
• should only be included if it refers to knowledge actually applied at work
• could be referred to in the performance criteria and the range statement
(DIIRSTE 2011 emphasis added).

This removes specific applications of knowledge from the applied academic disciplines
which underpin professional and vocational practice. Students have access only to
contextually specific elements of theory that are relevant to the particular context, so that
the emphasis is on elements of content rather than the system of meaning. For example, a
mechanic will learn that a particular formula applies in a particular context, but this does
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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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not tell them if the same formula will apply in a different context, or what to do if they are
confronted with the unfamiliar. They need access to mathematics if they are to exercise
autonomy and judgement. In contrast, Clarke and Winch (2004, 516) argue that students
need to learn the relevant theory and then learn to recognize instances of theoretical
propositions in practical situations to which they can then apply appropriate means.
Moreover, it cannot be assumed that knowledge can be tied to specific events because
events are complex outcomes. Understanding how events are constructed, identifying
those components that are contingent and those that are necessary, the differences
between events and their relationship to other events are critical aspects of
understanding, particularly in allowing students/workers to discriminate, select, and
apply knowledge in an appropriate way to particular contexts (Wheelahan 2012).

4. CBT is based on the simplistic notion that processes of learning are identical with
the skills that are to be learnt. This is derived from behaviourist learning theory in
which the outcomes of learning can be described in advance as observable
behaviours that are aligned to a particular task, so if someone is observed
undertaking a particular task, it is assumed that they have the knowledge they need
(Jessup 1991). The conditions for learning are external, and what is to be learnt is a
given (Smith and Ragan 2005). However, this underplays the complexity of learning
and the (p. 642) resources that people bring with them when engaging in tasks.
Whilst there can be no learning without doing, underlying capacity lays the basis for
new learning. This is widely recognized in the case of language, literacy and
numeracy, but less acknowledged when it comes to systematic access to theoretical
knowledge. Young (2010, 16), in drawing from the work of the Russian learning
theorist Lev Vygotsky, explains that:

access to higher order concepts … [is] a complex two-way pedagogic process.

Initially, the learner’s everyday concepts are extended and transformed by
pedagogy through engaging with the theoretical concepts of the curriculum.
The process is then reversed; learners draw on their newly acquired
theoretical concepts to re-engage with and transform their everyday
concepts.

This allows students to ‘think with’ their ideas and concepts and not just apply them to
specific situations. Theoretical knowledge becomes part of the lens through which they
view the world. It is the basis for innovative learning in the workplace, and for
educational and occupational progression.

5. Even though CBT is meant to certify that particular outcomes have been achieved,
as Young (2003, 208) explains, this doesn’t change the fact that:

the credibility, quality and currency of a qualification is only partly based on

what it says the person qualified can do or knows; far more important is the

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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trust that society in general and specific users in particular (those whom
select, recruit, or promote) have in the qualification … If one or other of these
communities does not underpin a qualification, it will have a problem of
credibility, however well specified its outcomes.

6. CBT models of curriculum in VET are premised on a different notion of the human
actor compared to curriculum in HE. HE envisages autonomous individuals who are
co-producers of their own learning, whereas VET envisages workers who are under
the direction of others (Buchanan et al. 2009, 15). HE provides students with access
to principled knowledge that promotes autonomous reasoning, whereas VET focuses
on contextualized knowledge and procedural knowledge. Education for the
professions focuses on the development of the person in the context of their
occupation and the knowledge, skills, and attributes they need broadly speaking,
whereas CBT focuses on workplace requirements and ties education to those
requirements.

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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Why Generic Skills Don’t Help

The loose fit between VET qualifications and particular jobs has been recognized in policy
and this has led to growing emphasis on the importance of generic skills. In (p. 643)
Australia this emphasis on generic skills is expressed as employability skills, which must
be included in all VET qualifications (DEST 2007). However, the notion of generic skills is
intrinsically flawed and Australia’s interpretation of generic skills in VET as employability
skills is particularly narrow.

The argument for generic skills is exemplified by the World Bank (2007, 118), which says
that people need ‘new competencies’ for the knowledge economy. These include cognitive
skills (such as skills in language, communication, logistical, and mathematical thought);
cognitive problem-solving skills; self-learning and self-knowledge; social skills (such as
team working, negotiation skills, self-confidence, and developing social networks) and
motivation for work (including initiative, responsibility, commitment, and interest). The
OECD (2010, 58) posits a similar group of skills, which include basic skills and digital age
literacy; academic skills; technical skills; generic skills; soft skills (appropriate emotions
and behaviours, multicultural awareness and understanding, receptiveness, etc.); and
leadership skills.

This is a common attempted resolution of the tensions between training for one and a
range of workplaces and training for immediate and future relevance. But this resolution
is illusory. Communication depends heavily on the subject since all skilled occupations
have highly specialized language—jargon—and is also highly sensitive to context.
Communicating with colleagues in a science laboratory is different to communicating
with a two-year-old in a childcare centre. Similarly, solving an electrician’s problem, such
as calculating how many power points may be run off a cable, is different from solving a
nurse’s problem, such as ensuring a patient takes their medication. As Young (2005, 15–
16) explains, ‘there is no curriculum and no scheme of assessment that could teach or
assess a form of generic problem solving that would apply to both’. The OECD (2010, 58)
in citing debates about generic skills, says that ‘Problem solving, for example, takes place
within a certain work environment and culture and is influenced by routine
procedures…’. The common terms in which generic skills are expressed mask the
differences they are trying to surmount. Consequentially generic skills either become so
rooted in their immediate context that they are not transferable to other contexts or
become so general that they lose their direct relevance to the workplace.

Moreover, emphases on generic skills tend to under-emphasize the technical or domain-

specific knowledge of particular occupational areas. For example, Willingham (2007, 13)
explains that ‘knowing that one should think critically is not the same as being able to do
so. That requires domain knowledge and practice’. In citing arguments about generic

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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skills, the OECD (2010, 58) explains that critics argue that ‘to solve anything but the
simplest problem, expertise and specialist bodies of knowledge are likely to be required’.

Problems with generic skills in VET are compounded through being interpreted as core
employability skills. In a report on the importance of ‘core employability skills’ for the
ILO, Brewer (2013, 7) explains that the appellation given to these groups of skills differs
between countries and that while the emphasis may vary between different jurisdictions,
that nonetheless these skills can be ‘pooled under four broad skill categories: learning to
learn; communication; teamwork; [and] problem-solving…’ These four headings are later
broken down into specific skills or abilities, and they encompass (p. 644) personal
attributes, dispositions and capacities and seek to mould and shape subjectivities in line
with prevailing dominant conceptions of the ideal worker. For example, in Australia, the
employability skills that must be included in all VET qualifications are defined as:

• communication that contributes to productive and harmonious relations across

employees and customers
• teamwork that contributes to productive working relationships and outcomes
• problem-solving that contributes to productive outcomes
• initiative and enterprise that contribute to innovative outcomes
• planning and organizing that contribute to long- and short-term strategic planning
• self-management that contributes to employee satisfaction and growth
• learning that contributes to ongoing improvement and expansion in employee and
company operations and outcomes
• technology that contributes to the effective carrying out of tasks (DEST 2007, 23–
36).

These employability skills are premised on a unitary notion with an ideal worker in an
unproblematic workplace in which workers and management all share the same interests,
untroubled by problems of power or worker exploitation. Conflicts of interest are seen as
arising from personal conflicts, rather than structured and conflicting interests arising
from the employment relationship in capitalist society.

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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Can the Capabilities Approach Provide an

Alternative?
The capabilities approach potentially provides a promising alternative as the conceptual
basis of VET qualifications. However, like the term competency, the term ‘capabilities’ is
used in many ways in different disciplines, and this creates similar problems for creating
shared understandings. The capabilities approach, as used here, is drawn from the work
of economics (Sen 1993, 1999, 2009) and philosophy (Nussbaum 2000, 2011). It is
increasingly being used in economic and social policy (for example, it underpins the
United Nation’s Human Development Index).2 The capabilities approach, as we are using
it in our work, focuses on the development of the person and the knowledge, skills, and
attributes they need for a broad range of occupations within loosely defined vocational
streams (Wheelahan and Moodie 2011; Wheelahan et al. 2012). It is designed to support
students to engage in occupational progression through a career, link occupational and
educational progression, and help them adapt to meet new and emerging (p. 645) needs.
The capacity to exercise skill at work is an emergent property of more fundamental,
complex, and wide-ranging knowledge, skills, and abilities. Capacity arises from the
interrelationship between personal, social and working lives, and that means learning for
work needs to go beyond work. Consequently, the capabilities approach starts with the
person and not specific skills. It asks about the capabilities that people need in order
achieve a range of outcomes and about the social, economic, and cultural conditions that
are required to realize capability.

Robeyns (2005, 94) explains that ‘The core characteristic of the capability approach is its
focus on what people are effectively able to do and to be; that is, on their capabilities’.
The capabilities approach distinguishes between capabilities and functionings.
‘Capabilities’ refers to people’s capacity to act, whilst ‘achieved functionings’ refers to
the outcomes that ensue when they choose to use their capabilities to achieve a
particular goal. A complex set of capabilities provides individuals with the basis for
making choices in their lives, whereas functionings are the outcomes when they exercise
choice. A particular set of capabilities can produce any number of outcomes. Walker and
Unterhalter (2007, 4) explain that ‘The difference between a capability and functioning is
one between an opportunity to achieve and the actual achievement, between potential
and outcome’. Two people with similar capability sets may make choices that result in
different functionings or outcomes. Sen (1993, 31) distinguishes between functionings
and capabilities in this way:

Functionings represent parts of the state of a person—in particular the various

things that he or she manages to do or be in leading a life. The capability of a
person reflects the alternative combinations of functionings the person can
achieve, and from which he or she can choose one collection.

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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Sen (2000) defines social exclusion as ‘capability deprivation’ and this arises when people
do not have the capabilities they need to choose how they will live their lives. He says
that social exclusion can be both a cause and result of capability deprivation (Sen 2000,
5). For example, those excluded from education are generally disadvantaged to begin
with, and continue to be so, in part as a consequence of their continuing exclusion from
education. Far from being a deficit approach, the capabilities approach is based on
human freedom and choice. Robeyns (2005, 95) explains that capabilities refer to
‘effective opportunities to undertake the actions and activities that [individuals] want to
engage in, and be whom they want to be’. As an illustration, those who have disabilities
that limit their mobility will have a narrower capability set if they do not have access to
transport or other resources they need to undertake the activities they choose (Terzi
2007). Capabilities are not solely an individual attribute; they also refer to access to the
resources individuals need to make choices, and the extent to which individual, social,
and environmental arrangements make it possible for them to exercise choice (Robeyns
2005). Education is not just a means to an end or an instrumental freedom; it is also a
‘substantive freedom, a constituent component of development’ (Henry 2007). Success
and participation in education is what makes choice (capability) possible (Saito 2003).
(p. 646) Moreover, Sen’s approach also takes us beyond a simple focus on human capital.

He explains (2007, 99):

At the risk of oversimplification, it can be said that the literature on human capital
tends to concentrate on the agency of human beings in augmenting production
possibilities. The perspective of human capability focuses, on the other hand, on
the ability—the substantive freedom—of people to lead the lives they have reason
to value and to enhance the real choices they have. The two perspectives cannot
but be related, since both are concerned with the role of human beings, and in
particular with the actual abilities that they achieve and acquire. But the yardstick
of assessment concentrates on different achievements.

An Important Caveat
There is an important caveat in the way we use the capabilities approach in our work.
This arises because the capabilities approach is a normative framework that is being used
in policy to evaluate, assess, and provide the conditions for individual wellbeing and the
social arrangements that are needed to underpin it (Robeyns 2005). It does not, however,
provide a social theory that explains the causes of capability deprivation, or social
arrangements and social distributions that cause inequality. This requires social analysis
and social science (Sayer 2011, 238).

Social analysis is needed to provide the social context for the development of capabilities
as it is this that gives capabilities their context. The absence of such an analysis can
result, as Sayer (2011, 237) explains, in ‘the application of context-insensitive norms or

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
Training
policies that are doomed to produce undesirable consequences’. This, in turn, can lead to
lack of attention to the social conditions and social arrangements that are needed to
realize capabilities. For example, whilst VET may provide education that helps students
develop capabilities, these capabilities may not be able to be realized in workplaces that
resist change, or fail to provide for the development and realization of autonomous
practice. Moreover, unless the conditions for the development of capabilities and for the
exercise of capabilities is considered, a capabilities approach could result in little more
than the formal provision of opportunities, without the substantive means to result in
opportunities. For example, disadvantaged students who are disengaged from education
require complex support if they are to experience success, which goes beyond passive
provision of opportunities, or even worse, making participation a condition of income
support.

Capability is contextualized by the broader social and economic environment in which

people live and work, and consequently, we need to focus on the capabilities that people
need for work. If the focus is on the development of the individual and on work, then this
means ensuring students have access to the knowledge, skills, and capabilities they need
to work in a vocation or broad occupational field. Education policy that considers
capabilities in the abstract will result in abstract lists—such as generic skills,
employability (p. 647) skills, and graduate attributes. This problem is exemplified in some
of the literature that explores the potential for the capabilities approach in HE. Much of
the HE literature (but not all) refers primarily to individual attributes and not to the
broader notion of capabilities as realized through individual, social, and environmental
resources and arrangements. Consequently, it can focus on ‘generic’ aspects of capability
without contextualizing them in vocational fields of practice which give capabilities
meaning.

A contextualized approach to capabilities is needed because the development of skills is

underpinned by complex capabilities that require an understanding of the nature of work,
the relationship between education and work, and the ‘kind of qualified person … we
want to produce’ (Muller 2009, 217). Producing ‘agential’ workers who have autonomy
goes beyond ‘training’ in units of competency that describe discrete workplace
requirements, or learning bundles of skills. Winch (2010, 560) explains that:

It is not the practice of a bundle of skills but the way in which they are integrated
into a form of agency, involving independent planning, activity and evaluation,
which is of a potentially very wide scope that is important to this type of agency.

A capabilities framework to support agency in this way will require access to the applied
theoretical knowledge that underpins practice in occupations and professions, but also to
industry-specific knowledge and skills that transcend particular workplaces and the tacit
knowledge of the workplace (Barnett 2006). Effective VET pedagogy would explicitly
orient to each whilst supporting students to integrate these different components of
practice. Learning outcomes, curriculum, and pedagogy also need to be based on the
notion of development so that a key outcome of learning is that students are able to

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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progress to the next level of knowledge and complexity of practice. Barnett (2006, 152)
explains that ‘inevitably, the base-level activities in many workplaces largely involve
situated knowledge, but in progressing to higher levels, a more even mix of situated and
disciplinary knowledge becomes necessary.’ Workers (and thus students) must continue
to engage with the contextual at higher levels, but they use theoretical knowledge that is
more complex and at higher levels of abstraction to do so.

The nature of qualifications and the design of the curriculum will differ within and
between different vocational fields of practice. Muller (2009, 217) explains that there is
not one kind of professional practice and that important curricular differences arise as a
result. The body of knowledge underpinning practice varies in complexity, depth, and
level of abstractness in different fields (Muller 2009, 219). Some qualifications will
provide access to more strongly demarcated bodies of knowledge because this is needed
as a precondition of practice, whereas others will have more emphasis on breadth of
knowledge and contextual knowledge. However, whilst this is so, Muller (2009, 219)
argues that the conceptual demands of all occupations are increasing and access to
conceptual knowledge is important ‘for epistemological, economic and social justice
reasons’.

In VET, achieving agency as described above by Winch means moving beyond producing
the ‘supervised worker’ to instead draw from the model used in education for the
professions which focuses on developing the person in the context of their occupation
(p. 648) and as an autonomous individual who co-produces their own learning (Buchanan

et al. 2009, 15). A capabilities approach may help provide more curricular coherence
between VET and HE and thus support pathways and help overcome discontinuities in
flows in education particularly if both seek the development of practitioners capable of
autonomous reasoning (Buchanan et al. 2009).

Conclusion
The problem with skills is that ‘the skills problem’ has been misdiagnosed (Keep 2012).
Policy focuses on putative short-comings with VET, and does not adequately incorporate
understandings of the way in which the demand side—employers—structures work and
deploys labour. There is some evidence that this is starting to change (Keep 2012). For
example, the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency’s (2012) analysis of the ‘skills
problem’ in Australia identifies the way skill is deployed at work and the way work is
structured as problems (but less so the way the structure of employment and the
casualization of labour contributes to the skills problem).

The nature of skills has also been misdiagnosed. CBT is based on simplistic behaviourist
principles that performing a skill is the same process as learning a skill. This fails to
recognize that the exercise of skill is an emergent property that rests on complex,
interacting, and broad ranging knowledge and skills. Whilst there can be no learning

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Rethinking Skills Development: Moving Beyond Competency-Based
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without doing, skilful practice requires integration of theoretical, procedural, and tacit
knowledge. The capabilities approach may offer an alternative conceptual basis for VET
qualifications because it emphasizes agency and focuses on the development of capability
that can be used to result in a range of functionings. This provides a much better basis
for the development of skills and for educational and occupational mobility. The important
caveat is, however, that capabilities need to be developed within the context of broad
occupations or vocational streams otherwise the end result will be a list of abstract
generic skills. Generic skills cannot provide the basis for skills development, because
skillful practice requires domain-specific knowledge and skill. The capabilities approach
also emphasizes the interrelationship between the individual, and the social, economic,
cultural and environmental resources that are needed to develop capabilities. These
resources must include the workplace and learning in the workplace, but they also
include access to education and to the applied theoretical disciplines that underpin
practice. This provides the basis for rethinking the relationship between education and
work, and between educational institutions and the workplace.

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Notes:

(1) Some of the ideas and formulations in this chapter are drawn from an earlier ‘think
piece’ by Wheelahan and Moodie (2011) Rethinking Skills: From Competencies to
Capabilities, New South Wales Board of Vocational Education and Training, but the initial
ideas in that paper have been redeveloped for the purposes of this chapter and extended
to reflect newer work on the ideas and concepts it contains.

(2) See http://hdr.undp.org/en/humandev/origins/ (accessed 29 January 2011).

Leesa Wheelahan

Leesa Wheelahan is an associate professor and the William G. Davis Chair of

Community College Leadership at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at
the University of Toronto. She has published widely on vocational education and
training, competency-based training, the links between education and work, and
post-secondary education policies. Her publications include Why Knowledge Matters:
A Social Realist Argument (Routledge, 2012).

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