The aim of this chapter is to develop and extend a social realist critique of competency-based training (CBT). Its key argument is that knowledge must be placed at the centre of curriculum, and that because CBT does not do this, it excludes working-class students from access to powerful knowledge. Developing this argument reveals that constructivist critiques of CBT not only miss the point, they are part of the problem. The chapter argues that this is because the relation- ship between constructivism and instrumentalism structured the development of CBT in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia, even though they are distinct theoretical approaches to curriculum. Constructivist discourses were appropriated and reworked through the prism of instrumentalism, thereby contributing to the justification and legitimation of CBT, but also to its continuing theorisation and development. The basis for the appropriation of constructivism by CBT is that both emphasise the contextual, situated and problem- oriented nature of knowledge creation and learning, and in so doing sacrifice the complexity and depth of theoretical knowledge in curriculum in favour of ‘authentic’ learning in the workplace. Consequently, in developing its critique of CBT and the instrumentalist learning theories that underpin it, constructivism evades the main problem, which is that theoretical knowledge must be placed at the centre of curriculum in all sectors of education, and that access to knowledge is the raison d’être of education (Young, 2008). This is not just an esoteric argument; there are real practical consequences for students and society. CBT is hegemonic and pervasive in VET in Australia, per- haps to a greater extent than in many other countries. Australia has two sectors of tertiary education; a higher education (HE) sector and a VET sector. Training packages are the mandated form of publicly funded VET qualifications in Australia and they are based on CBT models of curriculum. All publicly funded VET qualifications must be based on training packages where they exist or on ‘industry-specified’ units of competency in their absence. Training packages are the equivalent of the British National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs). If CBT is structured so that students are not provided with access to theoretical knowledge, at least to the same level as those undertaking HE qualifications, then this represents a mechanism for social stratification, because VET in Australia is over- represented by students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, whereas HE is over-represented by students from high socio-economic backgrounds (Foley, The argument in this chapter is developed through drawing on the sociology of Basil Bernstein and the philosophy of critical realism as complementary modes of analysis. While all social realists acknowledge their theoretical debt to Bernstein, not all draw on critical realism, so this chapter is part of a continuing discussion within social realism about the nature of knowledge and its place in the curriculum. However, this discussion proceeds on the basis of substantive agreement, which is that all students need to be provided with access to theoretical knowledge so that they can navigate the boundaries between theoretical and everyday knowledge and between different kinds of theoretical knowledge. © 2012 selection and editorial material, Hugh Lauder, Michael Young, Harry Daniels, Maria Balarin and John Lowe; individual chapters, the contributors. All rights reserved.
Author Keywords
Index Keywords
