2019 Volume 60 Issue 2 Pages 235-250
The results of the OECD’s PISA 2003 and the key competencies indicated by the DeSeCo Project continue to have a major influence on reforms in primary and secondary education around the world. Implementing competency-based education is important as it aims at efficient and rational teaching through rearranging the contents of education and specifying competencies, among which are “knowledge skills and attitudes one should possess”. Competency based-education has been greatly improved in European and Oceanic countries. In Finland, often named as an example of successful education, seven key competencies are set out in the current curricula of all levels of schooling where these competencies are taught and nurtured. In Japan too, the importance of fostering qualities and abilities has been acknowledged, although it has yet to emerge from the abstract level of discussion. As a proposal, I clarified concrete elements through examining the kinds of competencies that teachers should be trained in through science education and, as a model case, in medical education. Instead of merely teaching only the subject matter, it is important to have alternative viewpoints, such as nurturing competences for children and students through these subjects. For this purpose, it is necessary to have discussions about the meaning of culture as the background of education, as well as what skills and qualities should be fostered in children and students towards the latter half of the 21st century.
