DISCIPLINE-BASED VERSUS COMPETENCY-BASED EDUCATION IN DENTISTRY

Suryakant C. Deogade, MDS*, Dinesh Naitam, MDS

ABSTRACT

In the past, the traditional dental education (TDE) was structured in such a way that students mostly learned what their teachers chose to teach them and was, hence, considered as discipline-based learning. This approach was aimed to produce dentists with prescribed packages of knowledge and skills upon their graduation. Recently, a new trend of competency-based education (CBE) has evolved and brought a tremendous revolution in the existing dental curriculum. CBE provides a sequence of defined learning experiences to dental students so that on graduation they may be considered as qualified beginners in their independent clinical practice. However, this demands the re-assessment and re-structuring of the traditional dental and allied-dental curricula. Probably, the conceptual difference between a discipline-based and a competency-based education is the driving force towards the development of new curricula in dentistry.

Keywords: dental education, undergraduate, knowledge, curriculum, competencies.