Wow! Microsoft has outlined six success factors for educators and divided them up into thirty seven key attributes as part of their Education Competency Wheel. The really neat thing is that you don’t have to actually know anything. Being competent does not even come into play!

In my quest for precision of language, I looked up the word “competency” and found that it was not included in Webster’s 1812 Dictionary of American English. The best, and most applicable definition for competency I could find was this from the Australian National Training Board:

A competency comprises the specification of the knowledge and skill and the application of that knowledge and skill across industries or within an industry, to the standard of performance required in employment.

That is not so bad, except that Microsoft seems to have left off the first half. To be successful in education, you need only know how to manage information and people, not actually have any real expertise in your subject area.

I think Bill Gates actually has more to do with UNESCO than with the Australian National Training Board, so I went there to see what they had to say.

While the UNESCO CST project specifies the competencies needed to implement these changes, it will be up to approved governmental, non-governmental, and private providers to deliver the training for these competencies. The project also includes a mechanism for reviewing and approving the curricula and course offerings of these providers. UNESCO

Have we talked about UN approved curricula here before? Like the International Baccalaureate program (pdf from IBO.org) and its “core values?” Most of it is about developing the “global citizen” who is both socially and environmentally conscious. Which lines up rather well with PISA’s goals.

Globalization and modernisation are creating an increasingly diverse and interconnected world. To make sense of and function well in this world, individuals need for example to master changing technologies and to make sense of large amounts of available information. They also face collective challenges as societies–such as balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability, and prosperity with social equity. In these contexts, the competencies that individuals need to meet their goals have become more complex, requiring more than the mastery of certain narrowly defined skills. OECD.org

Would that be like, say, reading? Math? The history of the United States? Teaching that last one might actually run contrary to the above stated goals.

Which might be why the competencies do not address subject area expertise in any form. Learn to manage the flow and you can be a leader in education.

education, UNESCO, PISA, Gates