Research Of The British Functional Skills Policy And Its Inspiration

In need of the society development, Department for Education and Skills in Britain issued the14-19Education and Skills White Paper on February23,2005by the influence of the key competence, which is valued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD). The white paper put forward to implement the functional skills qualifications examinations in the three subjects of English, mathematics and ICT. After three years’trial implementation of functional skills qualifications examination from2007, the British Qualifications and Curriculum Authority issued the decision of implementing the functional skills qualifications examination in2010-2011in September,2010, announced to officially adopt the functional skills qualifications examination in Britain. Functional skills are defined as the necessary skills for21century teenagers by the British government, and the core of the14-19education reforms in Britain. Functional skills are aimed at making students master the basic skills for future life and work, participate in the society sufficiently and achieve greater success. The implementation of functional skills policy solves the problem of connection between academic education and professional education in Britain, and weakens the difference between general education and vocational education, which gives the students more chance to develop their career. The content criteria of functional skills reflect the citizens’ basic skills that are required in Britain and specify the British educational objective, which has fundamental significance to improve the British populace’s cultivation and enhance the comprehensive national strength. This paper will start from national key competency and make some comments and conclusions about the British functional skills by doing research and analyzing the policy environment, the contents and the implementation process of functional skills, mainly use the policy analysis method. The aim is to obtain some inspirations of constructing the national key competencies in our country, which would be beneficial to improve our populace’s cultivation and promote our educational reform.This paper makes the British functional skills policy as main research object. The instruction includes the reason for the research, the research purpose, the research perspectives, the research methods and the research status. The main body is divided into four parts. The first part mainly introduces the concept of competency, key competency, skill and functional skills, and discusses the significance of national key competencies construction and studying functional skills to our country; the second and third part mainly introduces the policy environment, the chief content and evaluation criteria of the British functional skills, and makes some summaries and analysis on the objective and content of the functional skills; the fourth part mainly put forward some inspirations and suggestions on how to develop and construct the national key competencies in our country. In the conclusion, the paper stresses the fundamental significance of constructing the national key competencies in our country, and points out it will be a long-term and difficult process, which needs our corporate efforts and supports.