Education: Understanding Competence-based Approach

National and regional Pedagogic Inspectors are currently reinforcing their skills on the subject matter in Yaounde.

After some years of its implementation in the secondary education system in the country, the Competence-based Approach (CBA) of learning is still a problem amongst teachers and learners. It is within this backdrop that the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Secondary Education in charge of Teachers Training, Boniface Bayaola, on May 9, 2017 in Yaounde, opened a two-day workshop for national and regional pedagogic inspectors to exchange and reinforce their capacities on the Competence-based- Approach (CBA) in the secondary education sector. Boniface Bayaola told the over 200 participants at the workshop that since the inception of the CBA, there are still problems of comprehension and putting in place of the programme. With such difficulties noticed, the Secretary of State stressed the need for pedagogic inspectors to exchange views, check malfunctioning while harmonising the programme. A Regional Inspector of Bilingualism in charge of the Teaching and Promotion of French to Anglophones, Beatrice Ano, told Cameroon Tribune (CT) that the Competence-based-Approach came to replace the Objective Based Approach in which teachers carried out their programme through the setting up of objectives, executing these objectives while doing a global evaluation of students from what they have taught. CBA, on the other hand, refers to a system of instruction, assessment, grading, and academic reporting that are based on students demonstrating that they have learned the knowledge and skills they are expected to learn as they progress through their education. With CBA, teachers expose students to a problem solving teaching attitude in which teachers guide students in solving any problem in the classroom. Beatrice Ano said it is all about how a student can solve a problem. The approach requires that teachers take care of each student, see where the student is good at, for no child has to fail. One of the problems of CBA, Beatrice Ano underlined, is how a teacher can enable an individual student develop his skills in what he can do best in a country where there are many students in a classroom for there are no infrastructures to divide classrooms into smaller groups. She added that there are no equipment to train students on the CBA as some classes do not have electricity and desk on which students can effectively and sufficiently practice. As a language teacher, Beatrice Ano said “I am out to help students use language to solve a problem in a given situation.

Marie Catherine Awoundja Nsata : « L’approche par compétences vise l’autonomie »

Inspecteur général des enseignements au Minesec.

Dans l’esprit de certains enseignants, parents et élèves, la confusion demeure relativement à l’approche par compétence (APC). A quoi renvoie exactement cette notion ?

On a longtemps reproché à l’école d’être coupée de la vie. Et l’approche par les compétences a cette volonté de rapprocher l’école des situations réelles de la vie. Lorsqu’on parle d’approche par les compétences, certains pensent que chaque fois que l’enseignant entre dans une salle de classe, il met en place une compétence. Il s’agit plutôt d’une association d’activités qui conduisent à un ensemble de savoirs. Savoir-faire et savoir-être. Dans l’approche par compétence, il faut un nombre d’activités qui vont permettre à l’enseignant d’atteindre son objectif. Et à l&r...