Keen to hear thoughts on vocational education training (VET)?
If so, come down to the symposium and hear another speaker, Leesa Wheelahan. She is an Associate Professor from the LH Martin Institute, University of Melbourne who likes to rethink the skills in vocational education training (VET).
Wheelahan strongly believes this can be done by moving away from competencies to capabilities because a capabilities approach emphasises building underlying capacity so students can realize a number of different outcomes.
Innovative workplaces of today and tomorrow are characterised by high levels of discretionary learning, and VET needs to support the development of autonomous workers who can exercise judgment.
The capabilities approach also emphasises the social mediated nature of skill.
Capabilities are not just individual attributes; rather they require educational, social, economic and
workplace arrangements that facilitate the realisation of capabilities.
So come on down to the symposium and hear them out and take away some key learning points. With those in hand, you can continue to take meaningful action to address the needs in your organization or institution.
Drop us a comment if you have thoughts to share on the above.
I will be attendint the symposium. What is the difference between capabilities and competencies. Competencies is directed at specific capabilities as well as attitudes, skillls and knowlege. I may have the capabilities for performing a certain role but I need to build up my competence through practice and experience.
ReplyDeleteGood question there, Rita. I would think that capability is a measure of the person's performance within the context of a particular job role. Hence, beyond specific competencies (as in task skills or task management skills), capability will entail values, mindset, metacognitive skills and other social and psychological constructs which enable a person to carry out the job effectively. Hence, capability encompasses competency and other less measurable constructs which implies that while building competence, one is also building capability (e.g. being more aware of the issues and managing the pressure of the job, having a positive mindset about certain customer types).
ReplyDeleteOn this note, I am interested to know how Prof Wheelahan proposes the measurement of these sometimes 'invisible' dimensions which make up one's 'capability'. Measuring competency is clear and can be straightforward, but measuring and building capability will need to be long-term, across different workplace contexts and under different conditions. As such, it will require a set of measuring instruments different from typical competency assessment tools. I think this will be interesting, and whether technology can be leveraged on to do this more effectively. What do you think?
Thank you for your comments! In our work, we are drawing on the capabilities approach developed by economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and the philosopher Martha Nussbaum (2000). The capabilities approach is increasingly being used in economic and social policy. It focuses on the enabling conditions that enable people to make choices about their lives. Two people may have similar capabilities but choose to exercise them in different ways.
ReplyDeleteWe think competency is different to capabilities and not a subset of it. Capabilities is relational: it links individuals, education and work by identifying the individual, social, economic and cultural resources that individuals need to develop as autonomous, innovative and creative workers. It focuses on what people need to be able to do to exercise complex judgements at work and what they need to be able to do in the future, rather than on workplace tasks and roles that have been defined for them or based on existing or past practice.
This has practical implications for vocational education and for qualifications. It means moving away from workplace tasks and roles to developing the person in three (related) domains: the knowledge base of practice, the technical base of practice and the attributes the person needs in that occupation/profession. This places a greater emphasis on theoretical knowledge than is the case in CBT. It also means moving from qualifications based on workplace tasks and roles to qualifications that prepare students for broadly defined occupations. Our very first go at thinking these issues through is in the paper below:
Wheelahan, Leesa and Moodie, Gavin. (2011). Rethinking skills in vocational education and training: from competencies to capabilities. Board of Vocational Education and Training. viewed 17 November 2011
I look forward to discussing these questions with you at the Symposium!
Leesa Wheelahan