Today the higher educational sector tends to assess education results in terms of competences. The first task in the development of the assessment system was to define what “assessing competence” of a person means. The starting point was to look at the dictionary definition of competence [1].

COMPETENT (adjective)
Fitting, suitable, sufficient for the purpose, adequate, properly qualified (to do a task).
COMPETENCE OR COMPETENCY(noun)
The quality of being competent; adequacy; due qualification or capacity; ability (to do a task).
COMPETENTLY (adverb)
Fit, qualified, capable, and proficient.

There is a slight difference in definition of competence and competency in Russia. Competence is the ability and readiness (to do a task). Competency is professional qualification due to the experience and certain maturity skills.

The main reasons of the modernisation of high education process and standards are: - Globalisation of education services - Unification of education results demand through all over the world (ESTC) - Assessment of the market, society and government needs as the end customers of the education services.

Those main reasons escalate the international education “tuning” process where different schools tries to establish the education approach that has universal goals for all over the world. It means the change of “knowledge, capacity, skill” concept towards competence concept in Russia. Competences represent a dynamic combination of knowledge, understanding, skills and abilities. Fostering competences is the object of educational programmes [2].

The second paradigm of the modern education is student-oriented approach. Mostly it concerns the change of teacher – centred study organization, where he (she) compiles the information to the class. Today students self development is highly appreciated. Teacher’s role is to motivate and organize the education process acting as a manager or coach rather then as a speaker.

There is a special program that helps to develop those main concepts in the Europe. TUNING Educational Structures started in 2000 as a project to link the political objectives of the Bologna Process and at a later stage the Lisbon Strategy to the higher educational sector. Over time Tuning has developed into a Process, an approach to (re-)designing, develop, implement, evaluate and enhance quality first, second and third cycle degree programmes [2].

In the framework of the Tuning project a methodology has been designed to understand curricula and to make them comparable. I’d like to stress your attention on the output of Tunning project in development of generic and subject-specific competences for Business students of first cycle (see Table 1).

Generic competences mostly concern the basic knowledge, ethics and intercultural integration fields. It is becoming more and more relevant for preparing students well for their future role in society in terms of employability and citizenship.

It was difficult to come up with one single standard for the aims, contents and subject specific competences that are to be achieved for business programmes as there is a great diversity in business studies courses and schools.

First cycle programmes should focus on general knowledge acquisition, in order to get students acquainted with the different business functions, the environment in which these functions are carried out in a company and their interrelationships. In order to achieve these teaching and learning goals, the student at the same time needs to become familiar with a number of basic supportive instruments, organisation and communications skills together with abilities to structure the problems of a business organisation. To reach these learning objectives at first cycle, students should experience different types of teaching methods, such as traditional lectures and exercises, seminars, project work and relatively simple practical cross-functional problems found in companies. The learning objectives of a course should be matched with the appropriate teaching and assessment methods, where students document not only their basic knowledge level, but also their abilities to use supportive instruments, to organise their own work, and to communicate and argue for the results and recommendations. This means that institutions even at the first cycle should use a variety of assessment methods, especially assessment methods that enhance the students' organisation, communication and system competences. After first cycle, students are expected to have employability, mobility and life long learning.

The use of learning outcomes and competences is necessary in order to make study programmes and their course units or modules student centred / output oriented. Those changes in education goals influence on education process organization leading to activation of the process. Practice oriented education methods goes alone with current modernization. Business studies use such methods as case study, simulation and games for activation of education process.

A simulation is an exercise involving reality of function in an artificial environment [4], or stated more concretely, “essentially a case study, but with the participants on the inside” [5]. A gaming simulation is an experience that features competition and rules [6]. Business simulations are an excellent way to actively engage people in a safe environment where mistakes can be learned. There are a huge variety of business simulations at the moment since this method had an active growth for last 50 years.

The simulation efficiency research generally document their input in following general competences generation: basic knowledge of the study field, capacity to apply knowledge in practice, ability to adopt to new situations, elementary computer skills. It could formulate the following specific competences depending on the simulation program choice:
- Use and evaluate tools for analysing a company in its environment
- Work in a subject specific field of a company, and be a specialist to some extent
- Interface with other functions
- Have self-awareness
- Be able to argue for the principles to be used in finding a solution to a problem mainly at an operational or tactical level
- Defend the proposed solution
- Prepare for decision making at mainly operational and tactical levels

Thus all of the subject-specific competencies could be developed using the simulation approach. Nine out of ten most efficient world business schools for 2010 (Financial Time version [7]) use different business simulations in their courses.

However, high results of this approach in formulating general and subject – specific competencies does not mean that simulations are widely spread in business schools. The main reason of this outcome is the integration concern, the hardware requirements and relatively high cost of the simulation products. Today almost all the universities have well staffed computer and multimedia classes. Remaining issues with integration and relatively high costs could be partly resolved by the sharing the idea of integration through the universities and simulation free trial period when the teacher could decide on the efficiency of the simulation product. Another concern is the product localization as almost all the simulations was developed in English. It became the international business language today. So it would have a great input for students and teachers who develop their courses in English as main language in class.

Summary: the experience of over 50 years in American and European business schools shows the efficiency of simulation approach in subject-specific competencies generation. There are still remaining issues with course integration, high costs of simulation products and its language. It could be resolved by the development of test courses that resolves the simulation choice and integration concerns.

Reference:
1. Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com
2. Tunning project website: http://tuning.unideusto.org
3. Jones, K. Who’s who, who sits where. Simulation & Gaming, 29, 328-330. (Reprinted from The Times Educational Supplement, 14 August, 1981).
4. Jones, K. Simulations: Reading for action. Simulation & Gaming, 29, 326-327. (Reprinted from Reading, 14, 1980).
5. Teach, R. D. Designing business simulations. In J.W. Gentry (Ed.), Guide to business gaming and experiential learning (pp. 93-116). East Brunswick, NJ/London: Nichols/GP.
6. Financial Times website: FT.com