Consumer Education

Consumer competences

A competence is “a combination of knowledge, skillsand attitudes appropriate to a particular situation” [1] Citizens deal with their daily ‘consumersituations’ by combining the knowledge, attitudes and skills they have in an integrated manner. Forinstance, when a person is faced with the decision on whether to invest in Satellite TV or pay utilitybills online or not, it is basically the combination of the knowledge, skills and attitudes towards thataction that will lead him/her to decide on what to do, how to do it and why to do it.

Basing the Consumer Education teaching and learning process on competences also impliescombining the knowledge, attitudes and skills of learners in an integrated manner, in the same wayas it happens in ‘real life’.

The COmpetence BAsed Consumer Education model (COBACE ), defines the consumer corecompetences (CCC) specified below for each one of the areas of content addressed in this site:

Personal finance management

Learners shall be able to:

Budget wisely in order to manage own personal finances, evaluate the consequences when●

making financial decisions and effectively address consumer issues

Undertake individual risk assessment before making purchases and demonstrate understanding of●

risks, safety and consumer responsibilities.

Safe and healthy consumers

Learners shall be able to:

Distinguish between and critically evaluate information and advertising for food/health products●

Understand and apply consumer knowledge to individual health management and demonstrate●

confident and appropriate use of consumer rights.

Responsible consumers

Learners shall be able to:

Reflect on and understand individual consumption patterns and analyse their effects on individual●

quality of life, global society and the natural environment

Distinguish between differing aspects of product quality (from the producers’, the traders’ and the●

consumers’ perspective) and actively promote sustainability through choices and advocacy.

Using services wisely

Learners shall be able to:

Reflect on the consumers’ role in private and public services and demonstrate consumer●

responsibility towards the use and development of public services

Recognise the difference between private and public services, the influence of consumers on the●

quality of services and service supply, and the impact of privatisation of public services onconsumers’ lives.

Each consumer core competence has specific learning outcomes or objectives associated with it.These are the expected results to be obtained after implementing a specific Consumer Educationactivity. Depending on the age or the characteristics of the target group, the learning outcomes orobjectives to be achieved are different. Because competences combine knowledge, attitudes andskills, it is appropriate that the learning outcomes or objectives are divided under these threeheadings.

[1] Commission of the European Communities. (2005). Recommendation of the European Parliamentand of the Council on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (on line).http://www.ec.europa.eu/education/policies/2010/doc/keyrec_en.pdf. Accessed on 29/07/07.

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