The Competency-Based Approach: Problem-Based Pedagogy and Implementation

Since 2003, the educational system has been undergoing a reform in which a new pedagogical approach has been introduced. This approach, known as the Competency-Based Approach (CBA), advocates learning through the development of learners’ competences. The issue is therefore no longer confined to the question: which items of knowledge should be included at a given level? Rather, it becomes: what should the learner know, what should they be able to do at a given age, and how can such progress be ensured both in terms of knowledge acquisition and in relation to knowledge itself?

The question is thus less one of content (which syllabus at which level) than one of know-how — or “methodological attainments”, to use Nicolas Rouche’s terminology — to be developed among learners. One may always include a wide range of grammatical rules in a syllabus, but what guarantees the production of a text correctly implementing some of those rules? Similarly, one may introduce all the theorems prescribed at lower secondary level, yet what of their effective use when learners are asked to solve problems whose wording does not explicitly state: “Apply theorem X or Y”?

If we are to address the issue of learning through the Competency-Based Approach, which competences should be targeted, and how are they to be achieved? It is not sufficient merely to declare that at a given level the targeted competence should enable the learner, for example, to add fractions or to represent three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. It is equally necessary to clarify the methodology or didactic practice devised by the teacher — or preferably by a team — that effectively enables the development of such competences in learners.

Although, in one of our meetings with teachers and inspectors within the educational system, we expressed our views on the notion of competence, we must now delineate the issue of problem-situations:

• What is a problem-situation?• What are its stakes?• How should a problem-situation be constructed and managed?