The paper presents some of the findings of a comparative qualitative study conducted at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and University of Belgrade, Serbia. It discusses the findings related to the opinions and experiences of the university professors about the role of competences in the pedagogy study programmes. Competence-based approach has been introduced with the Bologna process and raised many dilemmas and controversies among the university teaching staff. Many respondents are critical about the mainstream competence discourse, and associate it with narrow behaviouristic concept. They however express the stance that holistically conceptualized competence-approach could positively influence the students' ability to use theoretical knowledge and research skills when dealing with complex occupational challenges. [For the complete Volume 13, Number 1 proceedings, see ED568595.]