A couple of years ago the development of an European Credit Transfer System for Vocational Education and Training started. The European Commission together with the member states are working on it in an international working group and there are several pilot projects running at the moment financed mainly by the Commission especially within the Leonardo da Vinci Programme. The problem of transfer or at least sufficient transparency of vocational competences* is much older and has been unsolved until now because no adequate model for the description of acquisition of competences has been found. Although in the previous decade a certain shift in describing curricula and courses from inputs and subjects towards outcomes and competences (students acquire) can be observed, and good examples of competence profiles for study programmes or even single courses can be found, no coherent description system of acquisition of competences has been developed. In order to be useful for practical situations (as e.g. the ECVET) such system has to bridge the individual perspective (describing individual skills and competences) with the institutional perspective (describing the competence profiles of study programmes and courses) on the one hand, and on the other hand it has to be adaptable for different learning levels and craft-specific contexts. The paper illustrates how this can be achieved by using the Dreyfus model of acquisition of competences in such a way that the levels of competence development are not applied to overall professional actions (as shown for pilots, nurses, teachers and others), but to single (modularised) professional actions. While strongly taking into account work related tasks and contexts (such as tools, work-organisation) we define "groups of competences" and apply Dreyfus' ladder to these new entities. In doing so we assume on the one hand that each group of competence has an inherent level which might be reached, on the other hand we admit that it might not be possible to distinguish the five Dreyfus levels for each group of competences. That means we are adopting Dreyfus' model in two ways: (1) applying the model to groups of competences (corresponding to specific work tasks) instead of using it for overall competence profiles (corresponding to professionals/experts); (2) we make the model flexible and dynamic by not restricting it to a certain number of levels, but only defining the differences between levels.In the paper we are providing both formal definitions of groups of competences (as well as formal criteria and descriptors for the different levels) and empirical evidences taken from the sector of mechanical engineering. That means we are providing a prototype of the description of several groups of competences on several levels for a mechatronic in the form of a matrix. That matrix should be able to describe the competence development (steps of the learning process) of a mechatronic at any level of development. It is further shown how such a system of description can be transferred to other sectors and occupations, that it can be used for solving practical problems (such as the assignment of credits within the ECVET) and that its is sufficient exact for the understanding of different national educations systems, or understanding between the world of education and the world of work. In the long run this approach could bridge the terminological and ideological gap between education providers and the labour market.*The term competence is used in a broad sense standing for knowledge, skills and competencies