Adoption of competency based training by business and industry

Abstract

Competency-based training continues to be a major underpinning element in the various VET policies developedby the Australian federal government. This is despite evidence that competency-based traming is not achieving desired goals of increased skill levels and productivity and the failure to evaluate the effectiveness of a policy that has now been implemented for approximately a decade. To date there has been little research reported on the adoption of competency-based training by business and industry. This somewhat perplexing since this group was seen to be a likely major beneficiary from the implementation of competency- based training. This paper reports on a small scale study which surveyed HRD professionals enrolled in the Bachelor of Education in Adult Education degree at UTS Respondents were asked to report on the general adoption of competency-based training by their organisation and ways in which competency-based training was or was not used there. Conclusions are drawn from results of the survey and recommendations are made for a larger scale replication.