D.Pak

Каraganda State Technical University, Каzakhstan

BOLOGNA PROCESS AND COMPETENCE APPROACH

IN TRAINING MASTERS

In the past the industrial society needed executers with a certain complex of knowledge, abilities and skills (KAS). The traditional knowledge-oriented paradigm satisfied the industrial society demands. Nowadays in the conditions of the post-industrial society where the dynamics of changes is high, where industrial enterprises became science intensive, there decreases the amount of purely executive actions on the background of growing creative elements in the professional activities. The main resource became a human potential, not money or natural resources. In the era of information technologies the period of specialist’s competence half-decay is comparable to the term of training in baccalaureate.

The traditional KAS approach led to that in the post-industrial society of the XXI century there was detected a deficiency of competence-oriented specialists able to work efficiently in the new conditions after graduating from higher school.

In the Bologna process a purely knowledge approach was complemented with a competence (activity) approach to specialist forming. In this new paradigm competence is understood as a totality of interconnected qualities of a personality. Competences are considered as the aims of the educational process, and competence as its result [1].

By nowadays there has not been found a generally accepted definition for the conception “competence”. Under competence there is often understood the ability (readiness) to fulfill successfully professional activities based on the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired.

The process of forming key competences of higher school graduates supposes a complex use of training types and control: theoretical learning, practical learning (laboratory, practical studies, training and industrial practices); scientific research work; independent work; intermediate and final certification.

Competences cannot be formed in the process of only theoretical learning. They can be formed based on the acquired knowledge, abilities and skills and personal qualities development. The transfer to the competence-oriented training requires forming an innovation educational infrastructure including new targets taking into consideration the final results of training, new pedagogical training and control technologies, new forms and methods of interaction between a student and a teacher [2].

The transfer from the knowledge-oriented model to the competence one supposes the forming of professionally competent personality for which acquiring the ready knowledge becomes not the end in itself but an auxiliary means for achieving professional competencies. The problem of realizing a competence approach in training engineers is of a special complexity and urgency.

In Kazakhstan SESs of the new generation on technical specialties in the basis if forming the content of bachelors vocational training there lies the activity conception, in accordance with it for the main kinds of professional activities (production and technology, experiment and studies, etc.) there is defined the graduate’s qualification characteristics and professional competences [3].

Under the graduate’s professional competence there is understood his personality integral characteristic reflecting the level of professionally meaningful knowledge, abilities and skills necessary for successful executing the functional duties.

The competence approach supposes the transfer of the main attention from the quality of education content and the teaching process quality to the final results of training and mastering educational programs expressed in competences. Besides, if the quality of educational services is a component which can be checked in the process of attestation and accreditation, the professional competences indicated in SESs, unfortunately, cannot be directly measured.

The competence approach is an objective process conditioned by the social-economical preconditions, this is a response of higher school to the high dynamics of changes in the global world. The competence approach mostly corresponding to the present day economy demands supposes forming alongside with KAS (knowledge, abilities, skills) the development students’ abilities to professional activities.

In the pragmatic sense the competence model of a graduate is not identical to the knowledge model. The knowledge approach stipulates forming students’ subject knowledge in the volume of each module and cycle of disciplines. Knowledge must be systemized and have a logical sequence. Based on the knowledge acquired students must acquire certain abilities and skills. Abilities make an integrity of qualities characterizing an independent ability to use efficiently the acquired knowledge in the professional activity. Skills are abilities brought to a high extent of perfection.

Knowledge acquiring and mastering in the process of learning, and the further forming of various abilities and skills make the graduate’s professional competence.

A scheme of forming competences based on knowledge, abilities and skills is presented in the Figure.

The closer the individual KAS components interpenetration, the higher the competence level.

Forming competences based on knowledge, abilities and skills

Realizing the competence approach in the educational practice of Kazakhstan higher education poses a lot of questions. How and who will define the set of the key competences of graduates-bachelors? Are there any evaluation criteria of the educational program correspondence to the conceptions indicated? Are there any employers’ instruments for selecting young specialists based on the graduate’s competence model?

At higher technical school which started the Bologna process in 201, there are defined some contradictions between the growing amount of knowledge and the limited training term; the ratio of compulsory and institutional components shares in the bachelor programs;; the ratio of general educational and major disciplines; the ratio of the amount of class studies and students’ independent work; the module principle and syllabus flexibility; the principle of unification and preserving national features. There are a good lot of such questions. Should we use the foreign experience at once? “When harmonizing too fast, we’ll lose the quality”, - said V. Sadovnichi, President of the Russian higher schools union.

In the near past in Kazakhstan higher schools the ratio of the class and out-of-class studies was in the favor of the class ones. This was a success in the centralized controlling higher education, when the teaching process organization permitted to fix the theoretical material studied with the coming to a higher level.

In the new generation SESs there was taken a sharp list to increasing the share of independent work. This is a fact that took place in the spirit of the Bologna process. When making such a decision there was borrowed the experience of the west universities where students’ independent work appeared efficient thanks to a high availability of up-to-date equipment in the laboratories, an adequate methodological and information provision of the teaching process and the high motivation of teachers’ labor and students’ independent activities.

In present day education there are used the methods of active training permitting to model an integral content of professional activities. The advantages of active methods are high extent of students’ participation in the training process, the forced activation of their mental strain, the compulsory interaction between the students and the teacher.

This introduces a new quality in the traditional form of the teaching-and-educational process: there takes place the displacement of the relevance center from the process of information transfer and learning to the independent search.

Literature

1. Seleznyova N.A. Problem of realizing competence approach to training results / Higher education in Russia. – 2009. – No 8.

2. Sergeyev A.G. Competence and competences in education. Vladimir: Publ.Vlad.Univ., 2007.

3. Pak Yu.N., Narbekova B.M. Standardization of educational programs in the Bologna reforms context / KSTU proceedings, 2011. - No 3.