Abstract
Traditionally education has to contend with the problem that knowledge acquisition does not guarantee the successful application of that same knowledge. Yet, according to Whitehead, the ultimate goal of education should be to teach students to learn to apply knowledge. Furthermore, one is confronted with the problem that discipline-specific knowledge and skills are insufficient to respond adequately in a situation with discipline-transcending, new and unknown problems. Next to disciplinespecific knowledge and skills, more general knowledge and skills are needed in the area of e.g., communication, problem-solving, use of information, analysis, decision-making. General knowledge and skills, however, offer no guarantee whatsoever that somebody also has sufficient discipline-specific expertise at his disposal.
These are the problems that Nijenrode University wants to solve with a new curriculum for management education. In the curriculum developed by Nijenrode, students learn to apply heuristics in the area of general skills and meta-skills (reflecting and learning-to-learn) in interaction with a varying discipline-specific learning content. In this context, discipline-specific knowledge and skills on the one hand, and general skills and meta-skills on the other hand are, in relation to each other, both the objective as well as the means. The student learns the one thing with the help of the other and vice versa, by means of a continuing process of contextualization and decontextualization. The curriculum is a response to the challenge confronting management education to prepare students for future management positions in a world which is characterized by continuous change. The response may be interesting for other types of vocational and professional education as well.
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Everwijn, S.E.M., Bomers, G.B.J. & Knubben, J.A. Ability- or competence-based education: Bridging the gap between knowledge acquisition and ability to apply. High Educ 25, 425–438 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01383845
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01383845