Competency-based Education in Professional Programmes

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.

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.

 Words by: Ts. Dr. Muhamad Fareez Bin Ismail

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.