Katrin Hjort

Competence development in the public sector : development, or dismantling of professionalism

For more than a decade, competence development has been a key concept of modern management in both the private and the public sector, but to some extent its meaning and practice have been different in the two sectors. In the public sector in particular, competence development has been closely related to a number of other buzzwords characterizing dominant Neo-Liberal political conceptions, such as Lifelong Learning, New Public Management, Market Orientation and Decentralization. From an idealistic point of view, competence development is intended to promote professionalism, understood as knowledge creation, self-management and the ethical commitment of civil servants. However, the development has increasingly involved elements of supervision, declining flexibility and time consuming evaluation, which may have contributed to the de-qualification and de-motivation of civil servants. It is therefore a basic question as to whether the learning activities normally labelled as competence development are part of a developing or a dismantling process in relation to professionalism in the public sector. This paper seeks to deal with this question in so far as it relates to the case of Denmark, which is usually regarded as a significant example of the so-called Nordic Welfare State Model, implying the strong, democratic and service-minded role of the public sector.

De-democratisation in Denmark?.

In Denmark, as in many other countries, international agendas represented by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Developments Programme for International Student Assessment studies, the European Bologna process and the school effectiveness movement are important factors for educational policy. However, in national contexts, international policies become interwoven with local agendas and power relations. In Denmark, neo-liberal educational policies are linked with the present reform processes in the Danish welfare system, new public management. At the moment a political majority in Denmark has decided — without much of a prior democratic debate — to tone down the democratic statements in the objects clause of the Danish Primary Education Act. This seems odd, since traditionally, democracy has been a pillar in the self-perception and self-projection of the Danish educational system. The question dealt with in this article is whether we are dealing with de-democratisation in the Danish educational system and the Danish society, or with the development of new interpretations of democracy and a new need for a democratic debate.

Denmark: New Links Between Education and Economics

The Danish educational system is described within general, societal and political frames. Both structures and discourses of education are changing, as all sectors of society are affected by an economic move towards a global marketplace. From 1980 and onwards the Nordic welfare state, created after the Second World War, has been gradually transforming into a competitive state. Parallel to this trend, and partly as a consequence of it, we see thorough restructurings of the public sector and educational politics. New public management trends like decentralisation, privatisation, top-down management and focus on outcome are accompanied by new accountability technologies like social contracts, quality reports and national testing. Furthermore, considerable effort is put into shifting the general discourse of education from a vision of participatory, democratic Bildung to a focus on academic knowledge and basic skills, because of the need to educate all students for employability on a competitive labour market in a competitive state.