Abstract:

Given the global change, key competencies form the leitmotif in educational processes development at all levels of school systems and their participants. At the same time, students’ education is characterized by a greater degree of independence and freedom in choosing the way of learning. Their participation in mobility programs represents a certain contribution.

This paper deals with examination of students' opinion on the development of key competences for lifelong learning during their stay abroad within the Erasmus+ mobility program.

The aim of this research is to determine the extent to which each of the eight key competencies has developed in students during their stay abroad and to examine how they recognize that they have developed and/or improved certain competencies for lifelong learning. Participants of semi-structured interview are students of the University of Zadar (Croatia) who spent one semester studying at universities abroad. Main results showed that the majority of the students has mostly developed a multilingual, partly mathematical competence, digital, personal, social and learning competences. A lot of key competences have been developed also in the informal context.. All of them, inter alia, emphasize that multilingual competence is the most developed competence during the mobility for which there is no possibility to improve and develop rapid at the home university as it is possible abroad. In conclusion, the students recommend to other students that it is worth to spend a period studying abroad since it has much more benefits than disadvantages.

Keywords:

Lifelong learning, key competences, mobility programs, semi-structured interview, student.