In an era of rising expectations for greater professionals
of good accountability, the graduating student shall enter practice with a
defined set of learning competencies and the ability to produce measurable
outcomes that are reasonable and desirable. Unfortunately, the current
education system is mostly defined by its input. In an input model curriculum,
more emphasis is put on the amount of time a student spends “in seat” rather
than the content that is actually learned. Having certain hours of particular
subjects (i.e., X hours of pharmacology or Y hours of pathology) in the
curriculum, had led to many overloaded curricula in professional
programmes. The traditional credit-hour
system in measuring academic progress has been found to be ineffective to unveil
students' real performance and competence to translate knowledge into improved
quality of care [1, 2]. Due to this,
academicians and educationalists began to formulate customisable
learning objectives incorporating competencies in essence for a better-structured
education programme.
Competency-based education is a transformative,
game-changing step in professionalizing education. It emphasizes skills beyond
the knowledge domain. Competency-based education involves a dynamic learning
process that integrates knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward the attainment
of expertise within a defined practice context. Competency-based education is
when a curriculum or training programme provides holistic tasks to practise
these competencies. This method focuses on having students demonstrate their
understanding of a particular concept that they have learnt so that they can
truly grasp the subject. Whilst conventional school has the same objectives
which required demonstration of the mastery of a subject to earn a letter
grade, competency-based education is different in how the learning is paced.
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Competency-based degree programs
will not only aim to reward the student with the knowledge they have gained but
will ensure they develop real-world skills that can be immediately applied in
the workplace. Competency-based education is expanding learning opportunities
for working professionals. Many professional programs are adapting their
curriculum to develop more competency-based training strategies. For every
professional programme offered at MAHSA University, the lecturers are on hand
to assist the student in progressing through each specific competency while
ensuring that students have access to the learning resources or any educational
support that they need. The faculty will then assess the student's learning
through an exam or the completion of a project or an assignment once the
student has mastered a competency. One of the examples is the Objective
Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) which is used in medical or dental
programmes to assess clinical competence. It evaluates students’ competencies
using simulated clinical situations where multiple stations are arranged, each
with a specific time limit, for every student to pass through [3]. The stations
will assess the basic knowledge and their clinical competencies which includes
procedural, problem solving, and counselling skills.
Such revolutionary strategies in tertiary education will
ensure the graduates possess the required knowledge, skills, attitudes, and abilities
to maintain and enhance competence and improve performance within their
professional roles. Employers may be more convinced by academic work where
students applied what they had learnt in a pragmatic setting rather than just a
bullet point on a resume.
References
1. Gravina, E.W. (2017) Competency-based
education and its effect on nursing education: A literature review. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 12:
117-121.
2. Garn, M. (2019) Three decades and still
counting (the wrong things): An analysis of three reports on the possibility
and practicality of shifting our academic currency from credit hours to
competencies. The Journal of
Competency‐Based Education, 4: e01196.
3. Halman, S., Fu, A.Y.N., and Pugh, D. (2020) Entrustment within an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) progress test: Bridging the gap towards competency-based medical education. Med Teach, 42: 1283-1288.