The term competency is currently widely used in everything that is said and written about education and teaching. However, it has not always been common- place in education systems or secondary schools. To describe what these expected to convey to pupils and students, the notions of knowledge and values used to be (and still are) more usually used, and in earlier times perhaps, those of belief or faith. The use of the term competency has spread recently. Managers and experts glibly employ it when they speak of what is supposed to be, or ought to be, the purpose of schools and education systems. And they do so as if the notion were self-evident.