Definition and Selection of Key Competencies in Austria: Country Report on the BFS-OECD Project DeSeCo

Abstract: Corresponding to the requirements launched by OECD and the Swiss Federal Statistical Office in the project Definition and Selection of Competencies (DeSeCo) the paper provides an analysis of salient discourses, strategies and steps found at the national level for the definition of key competencies as the desired outputs of the educational system or as a basis for assessment. The methodological framework of the report is based on an analysis of literature and selected documents covering the debate held and the policy adopted in Austria regarding the definition and selection of competencies, and on a small number of specific interviews with experts representing interest groups and the school administration. The most noteworthy activities found in Austria were two long-term measures: The development of a new curriculum for the secondary lower level (1999 curriculum), which introduced a new mandatory competency notion in the sense of a complementarity between subject-matter competence and self-competence/social competence for this phase of compulsory schooling. Industry as well launched a process of several years that was designed to define the challenges and new requirements facing the system of education and submitted extensive suggestions for the definition of competencies needed, which are aimed at complementing subject-matter competence by methodological and social competence.;