Appropriating Competence: the competency movement, the New Right and the ‘culture change’ project

Abstract This paper raises some critical issues concerning ‘competency’ as represented, today, by the National Council for Vocational Qualifications and, earlier, by the Manpower Services Commission. It is argued that the narrowly behaviouristic model supported by the ‘competency movement’ is only one of the many ways in which competence has been approached within the social sciences. The issue of why those agencies should have promoted this particular model of competence is explored, using Bernstein's concept of ‘pedagogic discourse’. It is argued that competency should be located within the political context of the policies with which it is associated. The promotion of competency can be understood in terms of political aspirations of the New Right to change the culture of British institutions and economic life in the direction of a neo‐liberal market ideology. The problems of competency are explored with reference to its methodology and the manner in which it represents ‘the world of work’ and competence within it.