FEATURES OF A COMPETENCE-BASED APPROACH FOR
IN-SERVICE TEACHER TRAINING
Clementina Acedo
(Prepared for the Sumatera Basic Education Project, Indonesia, 2000)
1. A competence-based approach requires consensus around what is a successful teaching
performance.
2. Competence consists of combination of attributes (such as knowledge, abilities, skills and
attitudes) underlying aspects of successful professional performance.
3. Competence is inferred from good performance.
4. Competence standards provide a clear statement of what is considered important in ‘good’
(competent) performance.
5. A competence-based system identifies units of competence (roles for the profession),
elements of competence, performance criteria and a range of indicators.
6. Valid standards need to take into account the complexity of the teaching work. Therefore
competence standards of the integrated kind must allow for diversity of competent
performance.
7. Competence standards of the integrated kind offer powerful guidance for the improvement of
traditional course with respect to content, teaching strategies and assessment of procedures.
(There is more than one way of teaching effectively).
8. The teaching profession must own and develop the competence standards. Competence
standards should not be centrally controlled.
9. Competence standards define entry level. But the standards relate to tasks that allow for
various degrees of performance. So a minimum acceptable level of performance is consistent
with a full range of performance from excellent through failing.
10. Competence standards are not a curriculum document, although they will have implications
for the development of future curricula.
11. Competence standards provide a sound and consistent basis for assessment.
12. Competence standards are a public statement of what the teaching profession does.
13. Competence standards are open to review.
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