7. Relevance of DeSeCo for ALL and future assessments

DeSeCo outlines a path for a common understanding of key competencies and their many-layered reference points (normative and conceptual). It offers a comprehensive frame of reference for advancing research and development activities in a coordinated and collaborative fashion to broaden the range of competencies in future assessments and for planning and implementing a coherent, long-term strategy for assessments and indicators of key competencies among young people and adults.

7.1 Towards a common, coherent international discourse on competence and skill development

Terms such as key or core competencies, and life skills or basic skills enjoy much popularity in social sciences and education policy. Often they are used interchangeably or in a vague sense. By defining explicitly the meaning and nature of competence and key competence, DeSeCo provides solid theory-grounded foundations for a common understanding of desired education and learning outcomes in terms of competencies.

The skills and abilities subsumed under the notion of "life skills" used in the ALL framework are an integral part of the psychosocial prerequisites needed to cope with important demands in life and, thus, are consistent with DeSeCo's conceptualization of key competencies. Yet the notion of "life skills" as such seems rather problematic lacking rigor and consistency in public discourse and sometimes also in specialized literature.

DeSeCo's framework, including the concept of key competence, thus offers a useful basis for situating the results from ALL in a broad, internationally consolidated, normative and conceptual context. In turn, by providing relevant empirical evidence on how investing in key competencies can benefit to both individuals and societies, ALL underpins empirically, for instance, the policy discourse of OECD's education ministers on "Investing in competencies for all" (OECD, 2001).

7.2 Situating assessment frameworks and empirical results in a broader conceptual context

Assessments, in particular international assessments, have important policy implications. Situating current domain-specific frameworks and measures of education and learning outcomes in a general frame of reference such as the one constructed in DeSeCo (see figure 1) is a way to recognize the value, but also the limitations, of large-scale studies such as TIMSS, IALS, PISA, and ALL. It allows, when interpreting the results and formulating policy strategy, to take into account the complexity of the topic and to explain the results from different perspectives. The analytic power will increase by addressing not only the competencies or the components as such, but also considering the various factors behind the definition of key competencies: the characteristics of the demands, the linkage to desired outcomes in terms of a successful life and a wellfunctioning society, and socio-economic and cultural factors.