The use of the competency-based approach in the modernization of the higher education system in Russia

Abstract

For more than two decades the competency-based approach has served as the methodological core of the modernization of Russian higher education; however, its implementation has been accompanied by unresolved conceptual and instrumental contradictions, while the change of the institutional framework after Russia's withdrawal from the Bologna process calls for a reassessment of the accumulated experience. The aim of the article is to systematize the forms in which the competency-based approach has been used in the modernization of the Russian higher education system and to evaluate their effectiveness. The study applies theoretical analysis of the scholarly literature, comparative analysis of normative legal acts and four generations of federal state educational standards, and secondary analysis of aggregated statistical data. The evolution of the competency model of the graduate is traced: from general cultural and professional competencies to the structure of universal, general professional and professional competencies; a shift is shown from a borrowed pan-European framework towards linking learning outcomes with professional standards. Persistent problems of operationalization and assessment of competencies are identified. It is shown that critical assessments of the approach relate primarily to the quality of its implementation rather than to the outcome orientation of education itself. It is concluded that the competency model of outcomes is preserved in the transition to the new national system of higher education levels, which confirms its role as a methodological invariant of modernization.