Competence Development and Workplace Learning: Enduring Challenges in the Interplay of Policy and Practice in the UK
UK policies for post-school education and training have continued to focus, in the twenty-first century, on the significance in modern societies of human capital, lifelong learning and work. The competence development of individual workers is expected to
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Competence Development and Workplace Learning: Enduring Challenges in the Interplay of Policy and Practice in the UK Karen Evans and Natasha Kersh
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Introduction
Ideas about what constitutes a knowledge-based society are in flux. A conception of a knowledge society that combines the arguments for knowledge-based economies in Europe with wider notions of a learning society has been strongly related to the development of workforces equipped with high levels of competence (European Parliament 2006). The changing abilities required for contemporary working life present organisations and individuals with a number of challenges that, it is argued, can be met only through lifelong competence development. Developing competence has become crucial both for a sustainable working life (Evans et al. 2013) and for the organisational development of workplace environments. The latter has engaged UK researchers from a variety of traditions (e.g. Eraut 1994; Remedios and Boreham 2004; Evans et al. 2006; Fenwick 2006). European agendas since 2000 (European Commission 2000, 2001) have repeatedly emphasised the significance in modern societies of human capital, lifelong learning and work. In response, the driving force behind most member states’ policies has been concerned with employability and adaptability to economic shifts and demands (Zarifis and Gravani 2014), where the competence development of individual workers is expected to play a crucial role. At the same time, there is a strong critique of this position, as Zarifis and Gravani (2014) show in comparing the actualities of lifelong learning with the intent of the EC Memoranda. In the present time, self-sustainability is increasingly emphasised, as a goal which extends beyond employability, and the discourses of innovation move beyond adaptability towards creativity, developmental competence (Ellström 2001) and the reshaping of work practices.
K. Evans (*) • N. Kersh UCL Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 M. Mulder (ed.), Competence-based Vocational and Professional Education, Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects 23, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41713-4_15
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The nature of competence and its various configurations, as well as the contexts where it could be developed and exercised, have become important areas of research. Because of its complexity and strong dependence on the context where it is applied, the concept of competence has been interpreted and conceptualised in a variety of ways (see Part I of this volume). The meanings given to competence in everyday life, in both vocational education and training settings and in academic settings, are quite different. What is more, the meaning is likely to change over time within each of these contexts. We will start by considering the idea of competence development as used in occupationally related education, training and assessment, outlining policy and prac
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