CONCEPT OF COMPETENCE INVARIANCE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE THEORY OF EDUCATION CONTENT STRUCTURE

The paper shows why competencies serve as the ultimate learning outcome that determine study process restructuring, other approaches to content planning, teaching organization and technology, and actually play the role of a tool in the implementation of the new educational paradigm. The author dwells on the concept of competence invariance in professional education, which is defined as immutability and constancy, the property of any object (or its elements) not to change under changing conditions of its existence. In systemic formations, the invariant acts as a system-forming structure. There are logical grounds for the concept of competence invariance from the standpoint of the theory of professional education content structure, where the most important rule says that the teaching content structure is determined by the structure of activity and the structure of the studied object. Based on the analysis of the theory and practice of the competence approach implementation, the tendency to differentiate the concept of competence invariance is revealed in three aspects: the concept of invariance of a set (list) of competences required for a specialist of any profile (reflects the invariant structure of the professional education content); the concept of invariance of general competences (common for all, important for all and formed in all specialists regardless of their training profile); the concept of invariance of the structure of competences themselves (reflects the universal composition of the components that determine the structure of professional competences). The paper reveals the nature and dialectics of differentiation of the concept of competence invariance from the standpoint of the theory of education content structure. The existence of an invariant set of competences allows to develop invariant and variable parts of their content and fully implement the flexibility of mastering study programs when developing curriculum documentation in the training areas.