La enseñanza en competencias en el marco de la educación a lo largo de la vida y la sociedad del conocimiento

Abstract

This paper presents a quick historic diagnosis that is in fact necessary to correctly understand the current situation in the field of education. The authors analyze the modern teaching approach, based on skill development. It is their belief that this approach takes root in the new vision that is entailed by considering education as a permanent process, a life-long educative practice. An ever changing concept in today's knowledge society.
Since the organization was created and into our days, the actions of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (unesco) cannot be understood without taking into consideration the two postulates which condition every educative task: education democratization and continuing education.
In this sense, the different dimensions of this global process of education are identified: subject, goals, content, method and agent. All this entails a certain type of learning process, open to the social, economic, cultural and labor needs of today's society. This learning process has its suitable counterpart in the skill-focused teaching approach, as stated in the last analysis carried out by the European Union.
In this very same way the European Union guidelines on learning processes are analyzed, both in formal and non formal systems, and even in informal activities such as self-taught learning. This kind of learning implies focusing teaching activities not in content transmission but in skill development, as shown in the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) of year 2006, which replaces and integrates, among others, the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes for the 2007-2013 period.