Competency standards define the practical skills and knowledge a person has to have and use in order to effectively perform her/ his job. For example, competency standards for beekeepers might include:
> use a bee smoker
> open and reassemble a beehive
> construct and repair beehive
> manipulate honey bee brood
> re-queen a honey bee colony
> manage pest and diseases within honey bee colony
> provide bee pollination services
> trap and store pollen
> rear queen bees
> etc.
Meeting the competency standards is the ultimate proof of a person’s ability to effectively perform her/ his job responsibilities (in the case of VET program’s final exams, this result is not always guaranteed).
In many countries, competency standards are not available. In such cases, your intervention should support the local authorities and/or the VET providers in developing the standards to enable measurement of learning outcomes (knowledge and skills). VET competency standards are best set up in close cooperation with given trade professionals and employers. If possible, facilitate the recognition of the standard by National Skills Certification / Standards Authority.
If the standards are available (or were developed as a part of your intervention), you have two mains options for determining whether the indicator was met:
1) If the standards are already used by VET providers as a basis for assessing students’ learning outcomes, then review students’ exam results showing their performance in the competencies required by the standards. Then calculate the proportion of students who met the minimum required “competency level” as defined by the standards).
2) If the standards exist but are not used by VET provides as a basis for assessing students’ learning outcomes, work with the VET providers and/or relevant authorities on identifying previously conducted exams (or any other documented continuous assessment methods) which covered at least a part of the standards’ content. In order to measure the standards well, you might need to focus only on 5-10 key competencies (as not all data might be available). Similarly as in the previous option, calculate the proportion of students who meet the minimum level required by the competency standards.