ABSTRACT
One of the most notable features of the reformed system of vocational qualifications has been the way in which it has been founded upon or, in the case of the GNVQ, related to the notion of occupational competence. The principal aim of this chapter, then, will be to trace and account for the increasing prominence of the concept of competence, as a way of organizing vocational education and training, particularly in the context of the MSC’s New Training Initiative (NTI) of 1981. Although the need for changes to vocational qualifications was not made explicit by the NTI, it recommended that training should increasingly be based on the attainment of competence by an individual, and it also led the way for the massive Youth Training Scheme (YTS), in the context of which much of the initial research and development work into the characteristics of a competence-based approach was undertaken. We will begin, however, by examining the broader, contextual factors pertaining to the emergence of competence as a way of organizing vocational education and training: the imperative to replace initial skill-formation arrangements based on time served with training to standards in some sectors; the need to make education more vocationally relevant; and the development of vocational curricula for use in training schemes for the increasing numbers of young unemployed in the 1970s. The conception and implementation of the NTI was, as we shall see, not only an outcome of concern among senior MSC officials that the UK’s system of vocational education and training was in need of drastic improvement, but also of the short-term political pressure to manage rapidly rising youth unemployment. Following a discussion of the policy and institutional implications of the NTI proposals, the remainder of the chapter is devoted to an exploration of the emergence of the competencebased approach, particularly in the context of the YTS; progress in improving sectoral and adult arrangements was much more patchy.
