Competence-Based Vocational Education and Training and Its Cultural Context Sensitivity

Abstract

This article addresses the question of whether the concept of competence-based vocational education and training (VET) is transferable from one cultural context to another. Drawing on theoretical concepts of comparative education and sociological neo-institutionalism, the competence-based VET is defined as a new paradigm and situated within its cultural context. Then a case study of an educational transfer from Switzerland to India is presented. The article concludes that the pedagogical concept of competence-based VET is not universally applicable but includes culturally coined ideas, which need to be taken into account when trying to implement it in distant institutional contexts.

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Notes on contributors

Carmen Baumeler

Carmen Baumeler is Head of the R&D Division of the Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (SFIVET). Her main research interests are vocational education and training from the point of view of organizational and educational sociology.