Competencies don't always equal competence

New Zealand, Australia and the UK amongst other countries operate vocational competency frameworks. In New Zealand, secondary school education is also integrated into this approach and form the National Qualifications Framework. Like in Australia, a collection of competencies form nationally recognised qualifications. These competencies are known in New Zealand as unit standards (with secondary educational competencies referred to as achievement standards).

The philosophical model behind them all, is competency based training (CBT). Proponents of competency based training suggest that its about assessing a learner's abilities using naturally occurring evidence, not being graded based off a one-off examination of knowledge recall. Opponents say learners can simply keep trying until they fluke a pass, and that a scraping-by result is not distinguishable from those passes of merit or excellence, as presented by traditional academic grading models (i.e. A+ to F). Other critics of traditional exams point out that they often only require to know only 50% to pass.The reality is that both approaches have their value, and neither is the be all and end all.

I have years of experience, often at a national level managing the development, design, assessment and moderation of competencies and qualifications. I managed the NZQA programme for one of the largest government training establishments (NZ Fire Service GTE), and wrote the national urban search and rescue, and rope rescue unit standards and qualifications. As the former CEO of the Emergency Management Academy of New Zealand, we accounted for over 50% of civil defence unit standard achievement, with our closest competitor on less than 5%. I also have developed and taught several postgraduate qualifications for several universities in the fields of emergency management and public safety.

What is becoming of concern, is the growing trend of candidates holding competencies who are not really competent. Sure, learners turn up to a one day course in flood safety, and the next thing you know they are "competent". However, this is the norm and myself included have been part of this flawed model. This is why I and other leaders in technical rescue have formed the International Technical Rescue Association.

I used to teach for a global training business, and became less comfortable about students becoming rescue "technicians" just after three days of training. The students walked away thinking they were "technicians" too, they even had the shirt and patch to prove it. This was in contrast to those I trained as instructors, all of whom took months to years before there I was prepared to put my name against them as "instructors". But yet, I was signing people off as "technicians" in a matter of days - go figure.

When the new USAR and rope rescue unit standards were introduced (in New Zealand), we as an industry made sure you could not become an assessor for these unless you met strict criteria. A decade on, all those protocols have been forgotten and abandoned and we are back with the "if you hold it, you can assess it" mentality. This is like saying you can study to be a veterinarian, get your degree and without experience you can teach that same degree the day after you graduate. Really?!

What I find more concerning, is people are called "instructors" when in fact, there is no process for such appointment, or if there is, its internal - that is you self-certify without any external validation or accountability. I have seen photos of courses with instructors standing on rubble piles teaching USAR, but the instructors themselves are not wearing PPE - yet students metres away have to wear their PPE or face failure. But then again, no such instructor qualification exists, let alone any revalidation or code of conduct requirements for them.

This is why the global rescue industry needs ITRA. Because competencies alone are not the solution - they are a minima, and we should be striving for excellence. The flexibility of the ITRA training system allows an honest appraisal of learner skills, as instruction (not assessment) alone is where skills or knowledge are introduced and undertaken by participation (not competence) can still be recognised on a global central learner transcript (as opposed to in Australia where you are given a separate "Statement of Attainment" from each training provider) . But if the learner wants to step up to being assessed for competence, they can do so, but at a qualification level - not micro or skill by skill level. And the assessment is done by very experienced instructors who did not just get ticked off for the competency themselves the day prior. To me, this sounds more robust and defendable in a coroners court should someting go fatally wrong. Instructors who have been appointed independently by their peers, to international best practice, and subject to validation and external accountability - but this means stepping out of the comfort zone to be challenged by real experts from around the world, not just your mates from down the road. It also means big agencies loose control, they no longer can make up standards to make it easier to implement operational activities or cut corners on practitioner requirements to fit inside an allocated budget.

There is the mockery of training quality assurance, where some of the best instructors in the world are not registered training organisations, but yet a registered training organisation can run accredited courses with inexperienced instructors who have no national or global recognition as instructors (and just hold the competency).

In New Zealand, the four rope rescue unit standards sound like they are going to cease within a few years and not be replaced, begging the question how will rope rescue be assessed in New Zealand. Already organisations are moving over to ITRA to give them assurance and credibility.

In summary, public safety competencies and unit standards:

• Can be so vague in performance requirements leading to no real standard at all
• Lack robust or any criteria for instructor requirements
• Can be perceived as "box ticking" credentials
• Often allow for inexperienced persons to assess candidates against them
• Are often developed with a national lens, and not globally recognised or reviewed
• Often have no international recognition
• Often have additional fees for the student to have an official transcript or statement of attainment.
• Achievement is often tied to provider funding, incentivising completions over competence
• Fail to ensure instructors and assessors maintain currency of skills and knowledge
• Have no mechanism to centrally record learner achievement in a global environment, so losing your CV is a rather expensive exercise to replace all those statements of attainments.

So competencies do not necessarily create competence and though they have their place, their limitations need to openly acknowledged and considered if we want to keep practitioners and the community safe. So let's be honest about "competencies", so we don't fool ourselves when our focus should be keeping our people safe and to a real standard. Are competencies really preparing our people for the real dangers of technical rescue, or are they are comfortable way to tick the box?