Abstract
This thesis develops a multi-faceted picture of competency based training and the impact it is having on vocational education. The thesis is a personal attempt to act agentically by deconstructing the discourse of vocational education within which I am positioned in my working life. It is an attempt to push back the boundaries of the discourse and to explore and create spaces for contestation.In order to do this I undertake three different readings of a set of texts. The texts come from two sources. The first is a set of documents identified in the Framework for the Implementation of Competency Based Training and which represent the official government position on competency based training. The second is a set of interviews I undertook with teachers at the Canberra Institute of Technology regarding their views about competency based training. Details of the texts are provided in Section 2 of the thesis.
The body of the thesis is a set of three readings of these texts. The particular view of 'reading' used in the thesis is a post structuralist one. Each of the readings brings into play the understanding of the texts created within a particular discourse. I draw on the work of Michel Foucault for the understanding of discourse used in the thesis.
The first reading is from within the discourse. It is a reading which seeks to understand competency based training in its own terms, and in relation to the critical debates within the literature of vocational education. I argue in this reading that competency based training emerges as a grand but flawed vision for the future of vocational education.
The second reading takes the viewpoint of the work of Michel Foucault, and in particular his book Discipline and Punish. It uses the metaphor of the panopticon to explore the nature of power/knowledge within competency based training and the regime of truth which it brings into being.
The final reading is from a feminist post structuralist position. I argue in this reading that the discourse of competency based training is phallocentric. I explore the liberatory claims of the discourse and conclude that the claims are limited because they do not challenge the fundamental and powerful dualisms through which competency based training is constituted.
Finally in the conclusion I briefly explore whether I have achieved the aim of the thesis. I question what it means to act agentically and whether the type of thesis I have undertaken constructs the possibility of doing so.
| Date of Award | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Ann Hone (Supervisor) |
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