Whereas the competence approach has been implemented in the higher and secondary vocational educational establishments in CIS countries, its introduction to the school education is still lagging behind. Mean-while, in the school practice, there is an urgent need for the competence approach propagation intended to overcome the gaps between the national and European educational systems and develop the lifelong learning attitude.The paper presents the survey results targeting school teachers and concerning the competence approach implementation in schools of Kazakhstan. Teachers of different subjects with various records of service, and representing both the town and village schools were questioned. The survey reveals the main reasons for teachers’ negative attitude to competence-based ideas. In this context, the author recommends overcoming the identified adverse stereotypes by sensible combination of traditions and innovations.The paper outlines the main aspects to be considered while developing the tools for implementing the competence-based approach to school education, and gives a definition of the cognitive competence regarding it as an important characteristic of a school leaver.