Implementation of Competence-Based Approach in Chinese and Russian Commercial Vocational Education and Training

Worldwide, the competence-based approach to vocational education and training (abbr. VET) has become a widely-used means for addressing heterogeneous deficits in national VET and improving its quality. Although the development and evaluation of competency-based curriculum has been extensively researched worldwide, most of these studies focus on national discourses and reform efforts to introduce competency-based VET and therefore concentrate mainly on the „should“ level. Empirical studies on the actual state of competence orientation of curricula in commercial VET are still scarce, especially those that examine the phenomenon from a comparative perspective across countries. Against this background, this study investigates and compares the competency-based approaches in commercial vocational education in Russia and China, where they were introduced in recent decades as a part of the modernization strategies of VET. Using a mix-method approach to data collection, the embedment of competence orientation in curricular documents as well as its implementation in classroom practice are investigated from the perspective of teachers and through classroom observations. The collected data is analysed using qualitative content analysis. Based on the results, the interrelationship between the planning and implementation of the competency-based approach in commercial VET curricula and their cross-national comparison are discussed and interpreted.