Education model
There are many definitions of competency which is drawing many researchers’ attention. Generally speaking, competency is the combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes which are available or potential to be learnt to successfully perform the tasks. One’s competency can be measured by his/her degree and quality of work.
Along with mentioned concept, key competency consists of advanced abilities like reading comprehension, computational, problem solving, communication abilities, etc.
After acquisition of key competency, students can meet the needs of learning and others in various circumstances based on the fundamental competency.
In the working environment, competency or working competency can be understood as the specialized knowledge, attitude and the skills relating to the job.
A modern approach called competency-based education has played an important role in connecting education with the demands of society and the job market over the last few years.
In the 1970s, this approach was developed and became popular throughout the United States, and subsequently grew in the 1990s across a wide variety of educational institutions and companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc. This rapid growth was the result from evaluation of various experts and professors, that competency-based education is the most effective model of balancing education and the demands of employability skills, as well as the ideal method to nurture human resources for global competitiveness.
In comparison with traditional education, competency-based education measures academic performance by key competencies and job skills required by the labor market.
Students equipped with competency-based education are assessed against not only the specialized knowledge, but also the working skills, applicability of knowledge and attitudes required to fulfill the expectations of various enterprises.
While traditional education focuses on specialized knowledge, competency-based education shows the advancement and pre-eminence of encouraging students to clarify, depending on the diverse work environments, what expertise and skills they need to equip themselves and how to react in varied circumstances.
While lecturers act as instructors, the student plays the key role of competency-based education. This approach allows students to identify both their strengths and weaknesses in order to constantly fulfill their missing capabilities. As a result, the “outputs” of educational institutions applying competency-based education can meet the actual demands of the labor market.
With the aim of nurturing highly-qualified human resources that meet all requirements of the labor market and quickly adapt to diverse working environments, VTC Academy has applied the competency-based education model as core value for the development of our high-quality academic programs. That model is based on four key elements as the following:
In addition to applying competency-based education, VTC Academy also adopts authentic assessment to evaluate the student’s competencies. This approach ensures a comprehensive assessment of the student’s specialized knowledge, skills and attitudes based on a variety of formats and tools.
This approach brings higher reliability of the examination results and minimizes test pressure as a result of a thorough student’s appraisal by integrating specialized exams with profile assessment, interview, student observation and third-party consultancy (professors, supervisors, Academic Support Officers, Student Relationship Officers, etc.).
VTC Academy can easily follow up and support students to upgrade their competencies, throughout each semester with the application of various effective assessment methods.
As a result, all graduates of VTC Academy are able to immediately start their career according to their specialized knowledge. They not only impress employers with their competency profile including assessments of specialized knowledge, skills, attitudes, as well as real projects over their learning period, but also prove their competencies through job evaluations of various enterprises.
Thanks to the wide business partner network of more than 100 leading enterprises, VTC Academy always commits to guarantee employment for 100% of students. However, over the past decade, all VTC Academy students have successfully pursued their dream careers on their own as they have met all the strict requirements of the enterprises.