The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring : The case of Lithuania

Tero Autio, Liisa Hakala & Tiina Kujala (toim.) Siirtymiä ja ajan merkkejä koulutuksessa. Opetussuunnitelmatutkimuksen näkökulmia Tampere: Tampere University Press 2019, 377–409. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-359-008-3 The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring The case of Lithuania Rūta Petkutė SINCE THE INCEPTION of the Bologna process, there has been an ongoing wave of ambitious higher education reforms across Europe which have sought to shift the focus of the European university curricula away from the traditional academic knowledge towards practically applicable, market-oriented competences and skills. The broad purpose of the following chapter is to explore the emergent tensions between the recently introduced competence (outcome)-based conception of the curriculum and the traditional knowledgebased idea of the curriculum in the European higher education context. More specifically, I seek to analyze what kind of assumptions the European competence-based curriculum policies and approaches, as endorsed throughout the ongoing Bologna process, appear to make about the purpose and the nature of the university, its knowledge and curriculum. Then, I look at how these European assumptions are taken up at the national policy level and interpreted and responded to at the individual level by professional academics in the specific context of the post-soviet Lithuania. The inquiry into this subject seeks to contribute to the educational debates in the field of the sociology of higher education and curriculum studies. Rūta Petkutė 378 The emergent knowledge-competence tension in the European higher education context ‘Which knowledge is the most valuable?’ is a classical curriculum question, the importance of which was first articulated by Herbert Spencer (1860). The question was emphasized by the classical European educational philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), who stressed the liberal pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake as substantiated by the principles of academic autonomy and freedom (Ward 2012, 4). In the light of the German Bildung-Didaktik tradition, curriculum was conceived to be teacher-focused and knowledgebased (Lilliedahl 2015; Westbury et al. 2000; Willbergh 2015). However, knowledge was conceived not in narrow instrumental but broad intellectual terms. Autio (2007, 3) stressed that Bildung-informed academic traditions conceptualized the curriculum knowledge as “large cultural and historical bodies of knowledge and human achievements often carrying a moral or rational flavour, like humanity, humankind, World, objectivity, general”. This Bildung conception of the purpose and nature of the traditional European academic knowledge goes along with Bernstein’s (2000, 31) famous argument, which coherently builds on Durkheim’s (1995) social theory of knowledge, that the traditional theoretical knowledge as acquired at schools or universities allows society to think the “unthinkable” and the “not-yet-thought”. Furthermore, according to Autio, the German BildungDidaktik tradition positioned teachers as relatively autonomous and active agents who can use their professional judgement to freely decide on what knowledge should be produced and passed on to students. Even more, these normative curriculum decisions were seen as having moral, ethical and cultural implications. The importance of the knowledge question has also been consistently reiterated by contemporary authors (Allais 2014; Autio 2016; Wheelahan 2007; Young 2008), who, however, have critically observed that, as a result of the recent ongoing educational reforms across Europe and beyond, the role of knowledge in curriculum has been systematically underemphasized. In Europe, since the inception of the Bologna process in 1999, The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring 379 the higher education policy trend has been a shift away from the traditional knowledge or input-based university curricula towards allegedly more efficient competence or outcome-based curricula, which situate competence as a new central educational category (Magalhaes 2010). The so-called ‘post-traditional’ or ‘progressive’ competence (outcome) approaches to curriculum are based on constructivist assumptions about knowledge (Young & Muller 2010, 14) and suggest that students “create knowledge” themselves and construct “their own meanings based on their own interests and experiences” (Derry 2008, 508–509). Therefore, they place a great emphasis on the choice of students and the learning process, rather than the teacher and the knowledge content (Moore & Young 2001). In addition to this, a number of authors (Bernstein 2000; Derry 2008; Wheelahan 2007; 2010; Young & Muller 2010) note that another important characteristic of these contemporary approaches to curriculum is their heightened focus on the interdisciplinary, generic competences or transferable skills. These new competences or skills are thought to be more readily applicable across different work contexts than the academic disciplinary knowledge and, thus, easier traded in the labour market. However, despite a high level of political optimism about the competence agenda, it has been subjected to different kinds of criticism across Europe and the globe. To begin with, a politically promoted concept of competence is said to have an ambivalent meaning (Adam 2008; Bohlinger 2007; Hyland 1993; Mehaut & Winch 2011; Muller & Young 2014). Although knowledge, skills and attitudes are the most common descriptors of competence (Baartman et al. 2007), there are various inconsistent definitions of competence as the concept is often used interchangeably with skill (Adam 2008) and outcome (Adam 2008; Allais 2014). Yet, what all these concepts seem to have in common is that they refer to different kinds of ’know how’ or practical forms of knowledge, rather than the academic theoretical or conceptual knowledge, the access to which traditionally has been considered to be the most important purpose of the university curriculum (Muller & Young 2014). A number of authors stress that the reductionist approach to knowledge or, more specifically, the neglect of the theoretical or conceptual forms of Rūta Petkutė 380 knowledge in the curriculum, can be explained by the behaviouristic roots of the competence (outcome) approach (Eraut 1994; Hodge 2007; Hyland 1993; Morcke, Dornan & Eika 2013; Sweetman, Hovdhaugen & Karlsen 2014; Talbot 2004; Young 2008; Willbergh 2015), which is argued to be particularly unfit for the broad intellectual purpose of higher education (Hyland 1993; Mulder et al. 2009). Autio (2016, 12) underlines that the negative effect of the currently prevailing curriculum approaches is that they replace the classical curriculum question ‘Which knowledge is the most valuable?’ with “fragmented questions about what skills, competencies and, particularly, performances are most worthwhile in the international competitive labour market of the global economy (...)”. In addition to this, a number of authors point out that the current focus on job-relevant generic competences and transferable skills that the competence approach promotes runs the risk of diminishing the importance of the disciplinary knowledge in curriculum, as well as standardizing or ‘de-differentiating’ (Muller & Young 2014), fragmentalizing and instrumentalizing educational knowledge (Wheelahan 2007). Furthermore, the competence or outcomes-based approach while shifting the focus away from the disciplinary theoretical knowledge that traditionally has been at the centre of the university curriculum towards externally defined, market-oriented competences and skills, is said to diminish the academic freedom of professional academics in the realm of curriculum (Allais 2012; Young & Muller 2016). As some authors (Harden 2007; Talbot 2004) explain, the currently predominant competence or outcome-oriented approach to curriculum has been introduced as a tool to make educational systems and institutions more accountable. Also, for universities in the North-Continental Europe the Bologna-led curriculum restructuring was not an unproblematic technical change. Rather, in this part of Europe it has meant a move away from the classical Humboldtian ideal of the university (Lorenz 2010), as underpinned by the principles of the liberal pursuit of knowledge and academic freedom, towards the philosophically alien, neoliberal Anglo-American outcomes-based curriculum (Hohendahl 2011, 196). The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring 381 In this chapter, I seek to analyze what kind of assumptions European competence-based curriculum policies and approaches appear to make about the purpose and the nature of the university, its knowledge and curriculum. Also, I look at how these European assumptions are taken up at the national policy level and interpreted and responded to at the individual level by professional academics in the specific context of the post-soviet Lithuania. I am particularly concerned with how university academics perceive the implications of the curriculum restructuring for the curriculum and knowledge in the context of their discipline, also, inevitably, for their own professional work. I will begin by analyzing the assumptions that European competence-based curriculum policies and approaches appear to make about the purpose and the nature of the university, its knowledge and curriculum. The European policy assumptions about the university, its knowledge and curriculum behind the new competence approach In order to study both explicit and implicit assumptions that the European competence-based policies and reforms make about the purpose and the nature of the university, its knowledge and curriculum, as well as their reverberations within the national context of Lithuania, I served a conceptual content analysis of relevant European and Lithuanian policy documents. As the European Bologna process, which was initiated by the adoption of the Bologna Declaration in 1999, is understood here as an integral part of overarching European ‘knowledge economy’ policies and the Lisbon Strategy (2000), it is first and foremost important to understand their underpinning objectives. The key strategic goal of the European Lisbon strategy and the concordant ‘knowledge economy’ policies has been to turn Europe into “the most competitive and dynamic knowledgebased economy” (Lisbon European Council 2000). In this wider European policy context, European universities have been ascribed a decisive role Rūta Petkutė 382 in solving socio-economic problems and contributing to the economic growth (European Commission 2010), which implies that it is precisely the economic value of the university knowledge that has been politically emphasized. The often-declared ultimate intention of the Bologna-initiated higher education reforms is to make Europe’s different higher education systems more transparent, compatible and comparable, which is to increase students’ academic mobility across Europe. However, a closer look at the European educational policy documents suggests that at the very heart of the Bologna-initiated higher education reforms is not an educational but an economic ambition, which is to improve Europe’s competitive advantage in the global higher education market and make higher education a more active player in the development of ‘knowledge economy’ (London Communiqué 2007). Against this wider policy background, European universities have been consistently accused of being inefficient and lagging behind their US competitors in producing and transmitting knowledge that can be readily transformed into practically applicable innovations and contribute to the EU’s economic growth. It has been insisted that the traditional curricula of European universities are inefficient and too slow in equipping students with the right competences and skills needed in the ever-changing labour market and economy (European Commission 2012). Against the background of this political criticism, European universities have been urged to modernize themselves in order to be able to more swiftly and effectively respond to the changing needs of the knowledge-based society and economy (European Commission 2012; Lisbon European Council 2000). National governments across Europe have been increasingly called to shift the focus of university curricula towards the development of market-relevant competences and skills (European Commission 2012). Thus, the competence or outcome approach to curriculum has been endorsed as an alternative to the traditional European knowledge or input-based curriculum (Tuning n.d.a., 11) which usefully enables the explication of anticipated competences and outcomes and gives the basis for transparency, compatibility and comparison of curriculum outputs across different contexts (London Communiqué 2007; Tuning n.d.a.). Yet, what emerges from the European policy The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring 383 documents is that the key underpinning reason for the political advocacy of the competence-agenda is an attempt to increase the employability and the socio-economic relevance of the European higher education and knowledge (European Commission 2012). It is said that the competence framework is particularly suitable for this purpose as it institutes a demand-driven curriculum rationale that is flexible and open to the needs of employers and students. Also, rather than focusing on the disciplinary theoretical knowledge, it gives a special attention to the development of flexible, practical generic competences and transferable skills which are assumed to have a particular employability relevance as they help graduates to successfully operate within the knowledge economy. As it is argued, “In a changing society where demands tend to be in constant reformulation, these generic competences also become very important because they can offer more possibilities for employment” (Tuning project n.d.). In general, it could be argued that the re-orientation of the European higher education curriculum from educational inputs to outputs, as well as the heightened focus on work-relevant, generic competences or transferable skills have been largely justified on efficiency rather than educational grounds. These recent curriculum trends have been based on the assumption that the contemporary university, knowledge and curriculum should have a more instrumental, vocational purpose and economic value than traditionally it has been assumed. What is more, the European policy discourse on the curriculum restructuring creates an impression that the endorsement of the competence or outcome-based curriculum framework is inevitable and the only possible alternative across different national and disciplinary contexts in Europe. Also, it implies that the curriculum restructuring across these different contexts is a simple, technical process and the only prerequisite for its implementation is to provide the ones who are responsible for the change with technical guidelines and financial support. To date, however, it can be seen from national reports that not all European countries rush to implement the Bologna-spawned educational changes in higher education and that responses to them are mixed not only between countries (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2015; Méhaut & Winch 2011; Sursock 2015) but also within countries (Méhaut Rūta Petkutė 384 & Winch 2011). What is common across the European countries, though, is that there is a gap between academics’ less enthusiastic responses and more positive responses of political and institutional leaders (Sursock 2015). Also, according to Marvin Oxenham’s (2013, 109) critical observation, the very fact that the European competence curriculum framework has been consistently reinforced through the EU funding mechanism makes economically more vulnerable member states respond to the European curriculum reform initiatives more eagerly, at least at the formal level. The post-soviet Lithuania could be considered to be one these countries. The case of Lithuania In order to better understand the background against which the European Bologna-initiated higher education curriculum restructuring was introduced in Lithuania, it is necessary to first and foremost briefly sketch some contextual peculiarities of this country. Lithuania is an interesting case study to explore the way the ambitious European curriculum restructuring is perceived at the national level due to its unique historical background. In the first half of the twentieth century, Lithuanian higher education was apparently influenced by the Humboldtian idea of the university and later on, when the country fell under the soviet rule, by the utilitarian soviet model of the university. In the inter-war period, (1918–1940), the academic culture of the first independent Republic of Lithuania was shaped by liberal humanist ideas of European thinkers, especially German philosophers. Meanwhile, while under the soviet rule, the intellectual life of Lithuanian universities was re-shaped in accordance with the communist ideology and oriented towards the instrumental function – the preparation of specialists for the soviet planned economy and industry. It is important to note, however, that during the transitional period in the 1990s, the policy-makers and educationalists of independent Lithuania were rethinking the idea of Lithuania’s higher education and finding inspiration precisely in the interwar liberal humanist virtues which seem to have survived throughout the fifty-year period of the soviet The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring 385 occupation. However, very soon this idealist pursuit of the liberalisation of politics in Lithuania that started with the transitional period took the form of what Lithuanian sociologist Norkus (2008, 595) calls “neoliberal shock therapy politics”. Lithuania rapidly moved away from the communist to the capital system of the western countries and, with the accession into the European Union, swiftly adopted neoliberal approaches to policy-making. Given the historical background of Lithuanian higher education, it could be argued that, for Lithuanian universities, just like for other North-Continental universities, the Bologna-initiated shift towards the competence and outcome-based curriculum model has not been an unproblematic change. Rather, it has marked a fundamental break from the traditional knowledge or input-based curriculum and a radical move towards a more alien neoliberal Anglo-Saxon competence and outcomesoriented curriculum. Since the accession to the Bolognian process in 1999, Lithuania formally endorsed the competence approach to education at the policy level and in 2010 approved the Lithuanian competence-based Qualifications Framework, which is closely aligned with the European competence-based Qualifications Framework (Government of the Republic of Lithuania 2010, 1). What can be seen from Lithuanian higher education policy documents is that, in accordance with the European Bologna agenda, Lithuanian higher education policy has systematically stressed the need for higher education to become more responsive to the labour market (Republic of Lithuania 2015). Also, it has been insisted that it is necessary to include employers and other social partners into the studies process (Government of the Republic of Lithuania 2012, 4) and, in this way, ensure that students develop entrepreneurship (Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania, 2013) and “competencies required for future jobs” (Government of the Republic of Lithuania 2012, 4). However, the national report of Lithuania (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2015) has shown that in this country the overall re-orientation of higher education system towards outcomes has been slower than expected. While acknowledging Lithuania’s formal political efforts to adapt the curriculum reform, the European Commission critically observes that, in real life, Lithuanian Rūta Petkutė 392 the familiar world in a new way, the world which is no longer familiar.” (Benas, physicist) But the main tool has to be this [points to his head]. Because it has to check all the tools, and this, and that one, and this one, and to look at it creatively and systematically, too. (Lukas, engineer) In addition to this, students’ mastery of the traditional theoretical knowledge is seen by some as a prerequisite for students’ development of practical knowledge and their ability to make systematic practical decisions. So that they could take some sort of problem, solve it systematically, and run it through all these variants they have in their heads, all these protectors, check it, and then make the decision. (Lukas, engineer) But you must have this ability, ‘cause after this abstractedness, general phenomena and the ability to recognise their meanings, come practical decisions of every moment in our lives – what do you choose, what are you doing? (Justas, historian) Another important theme emerging from most of the narratives is academics’ expressed desire to feel free of external forces and constrains and be able to make independent decision related to curriculum. In free American universities I got used to the principle, that, when the doors of an auditorium are closed, nobody [accentuates] can command me. I can only be kicked out, replaced. And, essentially, nobody is commanding me. (Justas, historian) Interestingly, while at the beginning of our conversations academics made an impression that they do not feel any restrictions on their academic freedom, every time we started to talk about the recent higher education reforms and curriculum restructuring, their tone would became highly sarcastic and critical, revealing a fuller and less idealist picture of the present-day academic reality in Lithuanian universities. All academics at The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring 393 least heard or knew something about the European Bologna process and its curriculum reform initiatives in higher education. While most of the academics admitted that the Bologna process positively enhanced the opportunities for academic mobility, they tended to talk about its effects on the academic curriculum, knowledge and their own professional work in a negative and, sometimes, hostile way. “I dunno, everybody’s cursing it, but, maybe, other people don’t dislike the idea of making everybody uniform… No, I know nothing. Really, I don’t”, says a historian Zakas. Academics are generally critical of the Bologna-endorsed university curriculum restipulation around competences and outcomes because they perceive it as an externally imposed change that begins to regulate the way they approach curriculum and teaching. A journalist Matilda reflects: “Let’s take this Bologna Process, it’s sort of very mandatory, it’s being enforced on us somewhere from up above, this unification, so, well, you’re sort of managed, you’re put in a certain frame that determines your behavior.” Accordingly, academics find the newly introduced educational concepts, such as competences, generic competences and transferable skills, as bureaucratic and conceptually alien. What most of them note is that this vocabulary has been introduced precisely through accountability procedures, such as self-examination. The problem is that those concepts have been come up by somebody somewhere (…) They are totally from outer space… We can google what they mean, and write about them, but, so, yeah, they were specifically in the self-examination. (Tomas, physicist) Well, sure, I’ve heard these concepts, but, to me, they fall into this black list of nasty, ugly bureaucratic tools. (Justas, historian) As the new educational concepts were externally imposed, academics struggle in understanding their meaning and educational value. It’s been flying around everywhere, in papers, and here, too, everywhere… competences, competences… And what is this competence, may I ask? [ironically] (Alex, engineer) Rūta Petkutė 394 Sometimes, it seems to me, you have this bubble in front of you and you wonder what it means, sometimes you feel so stupid, you can’t understand where’s it come from. (Matilda, journalist) As some academics suggested, there was no need to change the traditional knowledge-focused curriculum as it has served its purpose well. Academics maintain that, even without the external interventions, they constantly change their taught curriculum in accordance with their own professional understanding. Whereas the currently ongoing curriculum re-stipulation around competences and outcomes is generally perceived by academics as a declarative act, which serves to demonstrate the ‘progressive’ nature of the university curriculum. Also, as it can be inferred from the narratives, for academics, the externally imposed change shows the system’s distrust in their professional judgement. But this moving for the sake of movement, when we need to change everything only for the sake of changing and showing that we want to change, let’s move forward… it’s a bit suspicious. The need to change should be justified (…) People, who work in this area, they see perspectives and the like, well, and, most probably, if there had been a need for change, most probably, they did that, and they improved, and they did it quietly, maybe, without making this noise. (Alex, engineer) Moreover, some academics shared their insight that the competence approach is a tool of the economically-driven European policies to increase the applicability and international competitiveness of the knowledge generated in European universities. A lot of time ago I attended a seminar presenting that Bologna Process. (…) The idea itself is good, but there we heard eurobureaucrats say the main motif a couple of times, that 80 percent of the world’s fundamental research takes place in Europe and only 10 percent of that transforms into applications. The biggest part is applied in America and now in China. So there was this The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring 395 wish expressed to outrun America and catch up in this area… firstly, catch up and then – outrun. (Tomas, physicist) What the interview excerpt above interestingly illuminates is that academics in the post-soviet countries, such as Lithuania, are more skeptical of the ambitious European Bologna-initiated reform agenda and its effort to compete with America for the international higher education market. For academics of the post-soviet Lithuania and other countries that share a similar past, the current European policy enthusiasm for the competition unpleasantly resembles the economic ambition of the former Soviet Union to outrace America. As Tomas says, “And it was extremely funny to the representatives of the post-soviet world, because many people still remember Khrushchev and that idea that we’re going to outrun them ‘with milk’, outrun them ‘with meat’. So, here we are once again trying to catch up with America.” Most academics share a belief that the competence and outcome approach to curriculum may have more negative, rather than positive effects because it is incompatible with a specific nature and purpose of university education. They name a number of dangers that the use of this approach in the university context involves. To begin with, it is seen as enforcing an overly narrow and pragmatic understanding of the purpose and nature of the university, its knowledge and curriculum. What academics largely agree upon is that the university curriculum and knowledge should not be primarily aimed at preparing students for employment and meeting the presentalist needs of the pragmatic and short-sighted labour market. As an engineer Lukas argues, “Science, it’s not an element of the market, the sheer preparation of a specialist shouldn’t be understood as an element of the free market.” They directly and indirectly suggest that universities should follow their traditional core mission of developing knowledge and understanding, which can be used to think about societal problems in a broader perspective. A physicist Benas expresses his position, saying that “But I don’t think that, that we need to, how can I put it, associate university education and employment” and adding “I mean, we, at universities, don’t have to simply solve the current problems the state or employers have, actually, but to take a longer period into consideration.” Rūta Petkutė 396 Moreover, the ‘progressive’ competence or outcome-based rationale, with its emphasis on the employability goal, is thought to result in a “factorytype” approach to university education. In addition to this, what some narratives interestingly suggests is that, in the specific post-soviet context of Lithuania, the introduction of this curriculum model is perceived by academics not as a progress but as a step backwards to the limited soviettype model of the university, which was narrowly focused on preparing technocratic specialists for the soviet planned economy and industry. As a historian Justas observes, “one way or the other, everything still goes back to a primitive replica of this soviet, industrial era university that imagined itself as a forge of specialists.” This expresses the worry that the current pragmatic pressure for employability, generic competences and skills is crowding out the academic theoretical knowledge and the university education is being vocationalized. Some academics put forward an argument that the present-day shift away from theory and intellectual ideas to practice is indicative of a problematic trend towards technocratizing academic knowledge and education, which in its essence is in a deep conflict to their “classical idea” of university as a site of knowledge and intellectual development. But I am a member of the Journalism Bachelor’s Study Programme Committee, so, you know, I can sometimes see how, actually, there have been many self-evaluations and assessments by experts, and you can constantly see, how, usually, they concentrate on professional competences more, more on this technocracy, and not on, you know, the way we understand – and, I don’t know, but believe you understand it the same way, too – university as a classical idea, right? (Fausta, journalist) Competences and all these things seem very much oriented towards instrumentality. (Zakas, historian) In addition to this, a historian Justas observes that the orientation of the university curriculum towards the practical needs of the market and discrete measurable outcomes institutes not only an overly instrumental, The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring 397 commodified approach to university education, but also leads to the fragmentalization of academic knowledge. As he explains, the current prioritization of the immediately utilizable forms of knowledge over other forms of knowledge has the effect of disrupting the development of allrounded professional knowledge and understanding. (…) professionals aren’t what this merciless market needs anymore. The market needs only certain body parts of a professional and only for about two years until they’re still totally fresh, tabula rasa, when they’re most innovative, so they can give away, I mean, resources of ideas they have and which are usually meant to be used for the rest of their lives. Two years, and then they must be replaced by others, ‘cause they’ve already been used up. (Justas, historian) Also, some academics explicitly or implicitly argue that the rigid specification of anticipated learning outcomes of curriculum threatens to undermine the open-ended learning in the university. This point of view was expressed by a physicist Benas: “(…) strict determination of aims, especially if these aims are reached, it limits the possibilities to grow and develop. And it’s not a very good practice, in my opinion, for such an evergrowing organism as a university is.” Furthermore, in the context of this instrumental, market-oriented and student-centred approaches, academics feel pressured and constrained by the market, policy-makers, university managers and even students to make the university curriculum more practically and work relevant. As a journalist Matilda says, university students make a pressure on academics to prioritize practical competences over theory and understanding. Actually, they want less… even much less… We still try to include all these, I mean, these principles of media philosophy, these sheer… I dunno, some discussions, debates and so on. But they think that it’s totally unnecessary. And it sometimes puts you off, ‘cause, well, you see that these are the fundamental things that explain why the media operates in this way, how it operates, and why it has this effect and not a different one, and Rūta Petkutė 398 so on, so you want to convey these things… But, no, “theory is too far apart from practice, we don’t need it. (…) They really, you can see that they are able to do more than just simply put some sort of radio stories together or something. So that’s why I think we need more of those. (…) at the Bachelor’s level, all that university educational foundation has been erased in an overly radical way. (Matilda, journalism) What she witnesses and criticizes is that the system treats students as customers and, thus, lets their often pragmatic, short-sighted expectations determine the very constitution of the curriculum: Well, you know, students are even bigger agents of the preparation for the market. (…) Because, actually, everything’s oriented towards students, so they, I mean that… But sometimes students lack understanding to define what they need and so on, but, well, this notwithstanding, students occupy this central position nonetheless. And with this little knowledge about what students need, there are efforts to satisfy or, well, at least to make them feel good, I dunno… Similarly, journalist Fausta is upset that, if earlier university had “its certain status, certain inner logic” and university teachers’ professionalism was respected, today it is students who “can evaluate the professionalism of a teacher, ‘cause these are the inquiries you might find in surveys”. The university administration’s use of students’ surveys as a means to assess academics’ teaching quality makes Fausta feel deprofessionalized and demoralized. Also, all these pressures, she maintains, institute the marketoriented vision of university education that is devoid of the traditional underpinning academic values and moral goals. She reflected: “(…) there were really a lot of people here who’ve contributed to the moral upbringing of journalists one way or the other, ‘cause it was necessary in those times. Now it’s a little, no, not a little, it’s diametrically a different situation. And I dislike the fact that universities are dependent on business.” Furthermore, what academics have experienced is that the outcomebased curriculum profoundly reconfigures the nature of their own The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring 399 professional work. For example, a journalist Matilda notes that the orientation towards strictly defined outcomes is bureaucratically burdensome and time-consuming: “I think that it puts this huge load of administrative work on the shoulders of our teachers, ‘cause you have to think about these things”. A physicist Benas reiterates that the outcome approach shifts the attention away from the very substance of curriculum and the learning process to the bureaucratic, measurable end results: “But I mean this isn’t the aim of studying. And the fact that I’m forced to think about the competences students are going to have after the lecture instead of thinking about what I want to convey to them, that already is, well, a total waste of our time, essentially.” As he sees it, stipulating all curricula around discrete, comparable outcomes as well as basing them on the externally derived universal criterion of employability relevance not only leads to a simplistic standardization of academic outcomes, but also subjects universities and academics to a greater external accountability: It is my deepest belief that, when we talk about university, it’s harmful to formulate these aims and objectives in a strictly bureaucratic form every step of the way. Maybe it’s not harmful to formulate them, but the final formulation always has in itself that some people, whose job is to supervise higher education, so they can take that formulation and start checking literally word after word whether the results and that university comply with what’s been formulated. (…) it sort of implies that there’s this perfect university, which, well… we’re given this information about what it has to be, so university comes, concentrates, hires good specialists, pays good money to them, reaches that result, and everything’s really wonderful. The way Benas perceives it, the externally prescribed outcome-based curriculum template de-professionalizes university academics and undermines their creative freedom: If everything’s been regulated to such a level that a bus driver can take the description and teach at a university, that’s bad for everybody. It’s bad for those who’s done the regulation, and for Rūta Petkutė 400 those who studies, and for those who… Because, well, I mean, nevertheless, a university must… There has to be some sort of order, but I believe that it has to have as much creative freedom as possible. Given these arguments, most academics consider the competence and outcome-oriented curriculum reform to be educationally ineffective or even detrimental to students’ open-ended learning. A historian Justas says, “And I don’t believe that these measures will help them reform it. I don’t believe it one bit. Counter-reform (accentuates)”, adding, “if we do respect the principle of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, so, again, this wordplay of bureaucratised terms, it leads nowhere.” What an engineer Alex misses in the ongoing curriculum restructuring process is its initiators’ clear articulation of its motives, meaning and possible consequences. He takes a position that any introduced educational change needs to be primarily justified in educational terms: “What’s it gonna give us, is it really gonna give us something? Or is it just a revolution with no direction, just as it was with [pauses] atomic bomb, right, when the foreseen results were foggy, unknown, so… But it can change some things, and, instead of getting a positive, we can get a negative result. Yes, it can look like we’re moving forward, but, in reality, it’s gone sideways”. Thus, university academics generally tend not to support and passively resist the curriculum restructuring: they rewrite descriptions and plans of their taught courses in the required competence and outcome vocabulary but in reality tend to ignore them. “We’re sceptical, they’re the advocates. By “we”, I mean teachers, and “they” are bureaucrats, the Ministry of Education with all its institutions. (…) Well, I don’t know any more advocates, I haven’t seen any among my colleagues.” (Tomas, physicist) “So, personally, I don’t particularly care for these competences. (…) So, yeah, there are many of such documents, and I usually go through them very quickly, ‘cause I feel it’s a waste of my time, The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring 401 actually, it is. (…) I do it with my teeth clenched and that’s it [laughing].” (Matilda, journalist) A historian Justas is the only academic from all the project participants that openly refuses to rewrite his course curriculum in line with the outcome-based framework. He warns that, if not resisted by “conscious and creative people”, the externally imposed pragmatic educational logic will gradually push out the principle of “knowledge for knowledge’s sake” from universities to some other alternative places and, as a result, will impoverish Lithuanian universities. “And I believe that if there are still no such places, in the future, totally informal, non-institutional or more or less symbolic places of high level knowledge for knowledge’s sake will form.”, he concludes. Conclusions This study has illuminated the emergent tension between the recently introduced competence (outcome)-based conception of the curriculum and the traditional knowledge-based idea of the curriculum in the European higher education context. The overview of the relevant European policy documents reveals that the new European competence-based curriculum approaches, as based on the Anglo-American curriculum model, are largely underpinned by reductionist, instrumental assumptions about the university, its knowledge and curriculum. This underpinning is in a stark contrast with the European Kantian or Humboldtian idea of the university that stressed the principle of academic freedom and the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. A closer look at relevant Lithuanian policy documents shows that Lithuania swiftly adopted the Bologna-endorsed competence or outcomebased curriculum model at the formal level and tuned its higher education policy agenda closely in line with the new European conception of the university, its knowledge and curriculum. What this suggests is that Lithuania, when formulating its own higher education policy and curriculum reform agendas, uncritically uptakes the ready-made European, Bologna-endorsed agenda. Rūta Petkutė 408 Méhaut, P. & Winch, C. 2011. EU initiatives in cross-national recognition of skills and qualifications. In M. Brockmann, L. Clarke & C. Winch (Eds) Knowledge, skills and competence in the European labour market: what’s in a qualification? London and New York: Routledge, 22–35. Morcke, A.M., Dornan, T. & Eika, B. 2013. Outcome (competency) based education: an exploration of its origins, theoretical basis, and empirical evidence. Advances in Health Sciences Education 18 (4), 851–863. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10459-012-9426-4. Moore, R. & Young, M. 2001. Knowledge and the curriculum in the sociology of education: towards a reconceptualisation. British Journal of Sociology of Education 22 (4), 445–461. https://doi. org/10.1080/01425690120094421. Mulder, M., Gulikers, J. Biemans, H. & Wesslink, R. 2009. The new competence concept in higher education: error or enrichment? Journal of European Industrial Training 33 (8/9), 755–770. https:// doi.org/10.1108/03090590910993616. Muller, J. & Young, M. 2014. Disciplines, skills and the university. Higher Education 67 (2), 127–140. Norkus, Z. 2008. Kokia demokratija, koks kapitalizmas? Pokomunistinė transformacija Lietuvoje lyginamosios istorinės sociologijos požiūriu. Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla. Oxenham, M. 2013. Higher education in liquid modernity. New York, London: Routledge. Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania 2013. The national education strategy 2013–2022. Vilnius. Republic of Lithuania 2015. The law on higher education and research. As last amended on 17 December 2015 – No XII–2198. Vilnius. Spencer, H. 1860. Education: intellectual, moral, and physical. New York: D. Appleton. Sursock, A. 2015. Trends 2015: learning and teaching in European universities. Brussels: European University Association. Sweetman, R., Hovdhaugen, E. & Karlsen, H. 2014. Learning outcomes across disciplinary divides and contrasting national higher education traditions. Tertiary Education and Management 20 (3), 179–192. Talbot, M. 2004. Monkey see, monkey do: a critique of the competency model in graduate medical education. Medical Education 38 (6), 587–92. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2923.2004.01794.x. The knowledge-competence tension in the context of the European university curriculum restructuring 409 Tuning Educational Structures in Europe. n.d.a. Tuning general brochure. Tuning Educational Structures in Europe. n.d.b. Competences. Ward, S. C. 2012. Neoliberalism and the global restructuring of knowledge and education. New York: Routledge. Westbury, I., Hopmann, S. T. & Riquarts, K. 2000. Teaching as a reflective practice: the German Didaktik tradition. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wheelahan, L. 2007. The marginalisation of theoretical knowledge in vocational qualifications in Australia: a blended Bernsteinian & critical realist analysis. Doctoral thesis. Melbourne: Monash University. Wheelahan, L. 2010. Why knowledge matters in curriculum: a social realist argument. London and New York: Routledge. Willbergh, I. 2015. The problems of ‘competence’ and alternatives from the Scandinavian perspective of Bildung. Journal of Curriculum Studies 47 (3), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2014.1002112. Winch, C. 2010. Dimensions of expertise: a conceptual exploration of vocational knowledge. London: Continuum. Young, M. 2008. Bringing knowledge back in: from social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education. London: Routledge. Young, M. & Muller, J. 2010. Three educational scenarios for the future: lessons from the sociology of knowledge. European Journal of Education 45 (1), 11–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-3435.2009.01413.x.