Abstract:

Living and working in the 21st century requires individuals to be able to continuously attain and expand their knowledge, skills, perspectives and values and participate actively in society and contribute to social movements and changes. This, in turn, is dependent on the high-quality system of education. In this paper, we will focus on higher education. According to the goals of the Bologna process, its mission (among other things) is to implement the eight key competencies into the syllabi of subjects at Faculties. Taking into account the importance of the role of the teacher in the process of training the young to work and act in the 21st century, the goal of this paper is to establish whether or not the teachers have acquired key competencies during their own higher education by participating in teacher training classes. In order to ascertain if the Faculties actually educate future teachers in accordance with the eight key competencies, i.e. their descriptions such as team work and interaction, problem solving, critical use of the media, ability to express oneself in their mother tongue and in a foreign language, we will analyze the syllabi of teaching courses at two Croatian Universities – the Croatian Catholic University and University of Zagreb (University Department of Croatian Studies). Since the importance of the development of key competencies is stressed in both European and in Croatian documents and recommendations, it was assumed that the analysis of the syllabi of subjects taught in teacher training programs will show that Croatian teachers have acquired key competencies and are well equipped to face the challenges brought about by the modern era.

Keywords:

Croatian Universities, key competencies, teachers' training, syllabi, legislature.