Search results

This chapter considers the notion of applied competence and its strengths and limitations as conceptualised in the South African National Qualifications Framework (NQF) for guiding sustainability and environment education in the workplace. Applied competence involves the integration of practical, foundation and reflexive competence and is used to guide qualifications, the design of learning programs and the assessment of learning. The chapter suggests that African citizens, managers and workers need to enhance their capacity to manage environmental resources to enable sustainable development, arguing that this needs to be done in ways that have material and epistemological outcomes that can contribute to individual empowerment as well as social change. The analysis in the chapter determined that this requires a critical appraisal of the model of competence being proposed by the NQF in South Africa with the intention of ensuring that the potential transformation is not lost through inadequate interpretations of the competence framework.