We live in a world full of fast changes in all of the spheres of human life, including the area of education. Being that the challenges of modern world can only be answered by a competent individual, the fact that terns such as competencies and competence become crucial at market and educational plan strikes as no surprise. The ideal of an excellent student is no longer to reproduce the teacher’s knowledge as successfully as possible, but to adapt to the rapid changes as successfully as possible. This statement has the consequence of a twist in educational policies. Accordingly, knowledge, competitiveness, success and competitiveness become strategic guidelines of the educational policy of the Republic of Croatia. The paper first focuses on the pluralism of defining competencies, the aim is to show their implementation in the curriculum and the turn of European educational policies, and thus Croatian, towards learning outcomes. The emphasis is no longer on the learning process, but on its results. It is because of this fact that the curriculum approach is, among other things, criticized by over-economised. The above and other shortcomings of the competency approach, as well as the possible path of reconciliation of supporters and opponents of the competence approach in education, will be discussed in the last part. The conclusion is that the benefits of the competency approach should be reaped to the greatest extent possible, while the downside should be overcome by broadly defining the concept of competencies such as a holistic approach to competencies.