Democratic Values and Purposes: the overlooked challenge of competence

Interest in professional development based on competence‐based education and training (CBET) is growing. Competence models undoubtedly pose some important, constructive challenges to traditional arrangements for developing knowledge and expertise at all occupational levels. However, CBET's impact goes far beyond this. Its processes profoundly affect how teachers and learners view learning, assessment and the purposes of education itself. CBET is also symptomatic of wider changes in notions about ownership, pluralism and breadth in post‐compulsory education and training. It therefore poses a profound and forceful ideological challenge to particular educational values, and to the way teachers approach their professional role. This article uses post‐16 teacher education as a focus for exploring some of these wider effects. It reviews recent critiques of CBET and argues that many are preoccupied with attempting to improve its efficiency at the expense of examining the wider political and ideological context in which it is being implemented. In order to counter the drift towards a narrow utilitarian curriculum in all sectors of the post‐compulsory system, analyses of CBET will need to show its powerful effect on some important democratic traditions in learning and education. This would provide the basis for a more coherent model of professional development than the limited and fragmented choices currently on offer.