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This final chapter looks at the central theme of the monograph: the desire on the part of policy makers to reform their nation's education and training systems. It reflects on the conflict between the politics and the established culture of learning within which key terms such as competence and outcomes take on different meanings. A UK case study of the learning of apprentice chefs is used to illustrate this conflict. The development of the competence-based approach to skill certification via the National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) is explored. The authors argue that this approach 'has been largely ineffectual in making headway against a culture of learning that is long established, favours an alternative conception to that promoted with the NVQ, and places great value on a particular process of learning'.