Abstract
The urgency of establishing the essence of the term “competence-oriented task” is determined by the orientation toward achieving substantive, meta-subject and personal results of education in the secondary school educational practice. This category, widely used in pedagogical science and educational practice, does not quite justifiably relate to the concept of a task of a practical nature. The establishment of the specificity of competence-oriented tasks is carried out on the basis of an analysis of the positions of different authors, not only in understanding this category, but also in the semantically close to it concepts of “contextual task” and “situational task”, and also in connection with the modern interpretation of the learning task as a means of forming integrated educational result. The conclusion is drawn on the understanding of competence-oriented tasks as the tasks that, along with the formation of the subject competences of the student, determine the development of such qualities that determine the ability and readiness for independent cognitive activity, that is, the qualities whose totality determines the concept of cognitive competence. Examples of competence-oriented tasks are considered. Requirements to competency-oriented tasks in teaching mathematics are formulated. Proceeding from the structural and content features of cognitive competence as a significant component of an integral system of personality characteristics of a school graduate, the requirements that must be met in competence-oriented problems of school mathematics are established.