Skills Development through Competence

[Doha]

Skills Development through Competence

By Taskin Mustafa Choudhury, Management Consultant & Training Specialist


Competence is a combination of skills, work & knowledge which is reflected in professional behavior that can be observed, measured & evaluated.   
Competence is a very good determining factor for successful performance.
People generally form an impression of any person or personality within a matter of a few minutes – its not necessarily fair but that's the reality.
In a professional setting an individual wants to appear as well as be competent – in other words – knowledgeable, skilled & capable.   

The concept of competence is probably as old as humankind. Homo sapiens have always desired to master skills and to find ways to solve practical, professional and scientific challenges. Certain individuals always received the prerogative to perform certain activities which had a highly symbolic meaning. The attribution of authority was originally strongly related to tradition but that gradually moved to cognition and ability.

In the current meritocratic society, people are generally allocated to jobs based on educational achievement and their profile of capabilities and other personal characteristics. The drive of individuals to learn to perform in certain fields of activities, however, never changed, and is to a large extent based on eagerness to master certain skills, become independent and get recognition. This is very well visible in babies and toddlers when they want to turn in their cradle, crawl on the floor and walk in the room, stimulated by their parents who are cheering when the first steps are taken. Young children constantly move around until they are able to do what they desperately want at the end of the day: to gain independence; or: to become competent.

For gaining an independent position in society nowadays, individuals need to pass through formal education trajectories and complete examinations. The higher the education levels students achieve, the higher their chances of getting a good position at the labor market and an appointment in a better-paid and stable job. Independence, however, is a relative notion. In society, people are interdependent by definition, but individual ego development is necessary for getting a personal identity in the first place and a professional identity later in life, for which recognition is needed, by getting an appropriate education qualification, and subsequently by being appointed in a job, being promoted, rewarded, and having a career perspective.

Development opportunities are the top priority of graduates from higher education and considered to be a major labor condition. Because of the massification of education, it became an industry. And because of its limited innovation capacity, it somehow alienated from society. Getting a diploma became a goal in itself, many educational institutions were not well-aligned to societal demands anymore, and became pedagogical islands. Sometimes this process is called the 'diploma disease', but it can also be named the 'competence crisis', as the big issue was whether graduates who were qualified really were able to perform according to standards in the profession and expectations in the working situation. Having a college degree was no guarantee for being able to perform well on the job or in society in general.

The disconnection between education and the labor market was the main cause of the competence movement. Therefore, professional associations began to articulate performance requirements and develop competence profiles with which candidates had to comply to enter the profession. Educational institutes reworked their curricula to adjust them to what was expressed as being important by professional associations and industry organizations. However, as the concept of intelligence, the concept of competence was multi-dimensional, and various conceptions of professional competence emerged. Nevertheless, at present, the concept of competence is institutionalized now.


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