New Courses Stress Competency To Meet Workforce Needs

Career College Central summary:

Competency-based education (CBE) can be valuable in ensuring community colleges provide the right kind of training to get people into the job market quickly with the skills employers need. This is the consensus of higher education leaders at a forum on community colleges and CBE on Monday hosted by the New America Foundation and co-sponsored by the foundation, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), Western Governors University (WGU) and the American Council on Education.
Under the traditional education model, everyone starts a course at the same time and finishes at the same time. Some students master the material, and some don’t. But with CBE, everyone masters the material, although some take longer to do so, said Johnstone, who describes CBE as “a platform that enables individualized learning.”
Dan Phelan, president of Jackson College in Michigan and a member of the AACC board of directors, called the work to develop CBE models “important and urgent.” He said AACC’s forthcoming strategies to implement the recommendations of its 21st Century report will address the need to offer CBE as a way to provide stackable credentials with real market value.

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