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HEIDEMARIE MÜLLER-RIEDLHUBER
formulated in different labour market and education and training contexts.”
While in education and training contexts learning outcomes are statements
of “what a learner knows, understands and is able to do on completion of a
learning process, defined in terms of knowledge, skills and competence”™, in
employment context skills and competences are expressed often in the form of
key-words or short task-oriented phraseological expressions.
Winterton underlines the need for a shared understanding of concepts unit¬
ing the different European instruments that have been developed throughout
Europe to support Member States in the implementation of their national
education and training policies. He refers to the difficulty of developing “a
common understanding of how competence can be interpreted across these
different instruments” and notes the challenge ESCO faces in this respect:
there exist a plethora of competence models and definitions at national level
(for example, the French and the German model) or in science (for example,
Bloom’s taxonomy, Cheetham and Chivers Holistic model)”.
The question how to interpret the concept “competence” and which
competence model would fit best as a general reference model on a European
level led already to an extremely contradictory discussion in the process of
defining EQF descriptors.'*In the context of the EQF “competence” was finally
not chosen to be an all encompassing concept, but was instead “downgraded”
to the very specific meaning of “responsibility and autonomy”. Instead of the
competence concept the trinity of “knowledge, skills and competence” (KSC)
was stressed and the term “learning outcome” was used as an overarching
Cf.: Heidemarie Miiller-Riedlhuber, The European Dictionary of Skills and Competences
(DISCO): An Example of Usage Scenarios for Ontologies, Graz, 2009, http://test.factlink.net/.../
disco_presentation_isemantics_final_fullversion.pdf, accessed 15 October 2015.
8 Cf.: Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 on the
establishment of the European Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning, Annex I, 4.
J. Winterton, Varieties of Competence: European Perspectives, in Mathias Pilz (ed.), The Future
of Vocational Educational and Training in a Changing World, Springer 2012, 472.
Cf. for example the comparison of the understanding of competences in the anglo-american
and the German sphere by S. Grote et al., Kompetenzen und deren Management: ein Überblick,
in S. Grote — S. Kauffeld — K. Denison -E. Frieling (eds.), Kompetenzmanagement. Grundlagen
und Praxisbeispiele, Stuttgart, 2006, 15-32.
Cf. K. Luomi-Messerer — J. Markowitsch, Entstehung und Interpretation der Deskriptoren
des Europäischen Qualifikationsrahmens, Europäische Zeitschrift für Berufsbildung, No.
42/43, 2007/08, 48. The authors refer e.g. to the fact that the first draft of EQF descriptors
was split in the three main categories knowledge, skills and “personal and domain-specific
competences”. The latter was subdivided into “autonomy and responsibility”, “learning
competence”, “communicational and social competence” and “domain-specific and
occupational competence”.
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