User:Pbsouthwood/Foundational knowledge

Foundational knowledge is the knowledge necessary for understanding or usefully applying further knowledge in a field. It is the internalized basic facts and theories necessary for understanding, and from which analysis, interpretation and evaluation can develop.

Etymology
Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such as facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning. Knowledge can refer to a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It can be implicit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); it can be more or less formal or systematic. In philosophy, the study of knowledge is called epistemology. Knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, communication, and reasoning.

Foundational is an adjective denoting an underlying basis or principle, forming the base from which other things develop.

In education
In the South African education system there is a part qualification called Foundational Learning Competence that consists of communication and mathematical literacy, which indicates the minimum proficiency in these aspects of foundational knowledge assumed necessary for effective functioning in the general and technical workplace, and is a compulsory prerequisite for access to, or a required component of, a large number of registered training programmes on the National Qualifications Framework. Foundational skills in communication are considered to be the reading, writing, listening and speaking skills that will enable the person to function effectively in the workplace, and enable a learner to effectively participate in further learning and occupational training. Foundational mathematical literacy covers the ability to use mathematical concepts in an occupational context.

In philosophy
Bertrand Russell claimed that foundational knowledge is necessarily knowledge by acquaintance, and therefore knowledge by inference is not foundational, effectively a narrower definition.