The rhetoric and reality of professional competence-based vocational education in Scotland

Abstract

This paper reports on an evaluation of competence-based vocational education practice in Scotland, with particular reference to higher level professional awards. Students (n =236) who registered for level 4 and 5 Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQs) returned questionnaires providing data on their experience of the programmes, the criterion-based assessment methodology and the quality of learning. It was found that participation in the ‘new vocationalism’ was highly gender patterned, had little impact on education and training targets and was skewed in favour of particular awards and occupational groups. The criterion-based assessment methodology proved more time-consuming for the students than the staff, with the emphasis on producing paper-based portfolios of evidence. A particular concern emerging from the research was the superficial nature of learning taking place on competence-based vocational education programmes. These findings are discussed in the context of the growth in‘outcome-based’ approaches to education adopted by policy makers in Scotland. It is argued that the narrow instrumentalist employer-led standards used to underpin education practice are ill-suited to developing a highly skilled professional workforce for the next century.