Competency based modular educational programs

Abstract

It has been established that the basic documents on the development of higher education of the Republic of Kazakhstan declared the principles of competence approach and modular learning, but in practice, their implementation is faced with certain difficulties and that it is particularly difficult to implement the competency-based approach in the absence of professional standards. In this regard, the goal was set to develop a methodology for the formation of integrated standards and implement it for a modular educational program of any specialty. The essence of this methodology consists in that the development of an integrated standard is not a single process. It is divided because at the initial stage the representatives of the education sphere determine only the expanded list of competencies, then the employers enter the process independently on them, and the faculty formulates the learning outcomes only after specification of the competences’ list. To achieve this goal, an algorithm for the development of modular educational programs has been created, methods of document analysis, retrospective analysis and questionnaires were applied, experimental work on the formation of the list of competencies was carried out. The experts who participated in assessing the competencies importance showed the high qualifications, good knowledge in the labor market and the skill to formulate the required data. On the basis of this list, the list of necessary competencies for “Computer science and software” specialty has been compiled.