Abstract: With the increasing popularity of student key competencies and discipline key competencies, key competencies are becoming a wind vane in Chinese educational reform. In this paper, we discussed the key questions of how to grasp its essence and put it into practice. We argued that,on the one hand, the essence of key competencies is a new way to interpret educational objectives in terms of all-round development and lifelong development. On the other hand, the hierarchical structure is a desirable framework to analyze key competencies, as it can integrate the educational theory and practice in support of all-round development and lifelong development.

Key words: key competencies, educational objectives, three-layered structure