Abstract:

It is widely acknowledged that teachers play a significant role on the success of any implemented educational policy. There is an increasing pressure and growing expectations for their ability to promote key competences, so the students may be able to participate effectively in society. This research study has offered the opportunity to compare, in five different European countries, the teachers' competences as perceived by themselves and by the students. The five-country team developed a comparative research in Europe, concerning the question of competences in secondary schools: what the teachers offer and what the students demand. Competences play a crucial role in school life. Teachers and students face the challenge of the knowledge society, in terms of designing new contexts of citizenship. The dilemma the research poses is the ability of theoretical competences to become practice in educating towards a new European citizenship (Chistolini, 2010).
The Council of Europe's Parliament adopted Resolution 1849 (October 3, 2008) recommending the promotion of a culture of democracy and human rights in schools through teacher education. The necessary teaching competences involved would include aspects as the ability to create learning environments beyond the classroom, allowing community to engage in partnerships and making learning more significant. Moreover, the Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council (2006/0962/EC) on the eight key competences for Lifelong learning stressed that the social and civic competences should be acquired by all students through schooling. How are teachers responding to the complex challenges of the knowledge society? How are teachers integrating cognitive, ethical and action-related competences in their practice? And how are the students experiencing teaching? These were some of the questions that the research has tried to answer according to the achieved results.
The aim of this study, developed in different European countries (Cyprus, Germany, Portugal and Italy), was to explore and compare teachers’ perceived professional competences and practice, with the students’ awareness of their teaching. The original Italian questionnaires, one for students and another for teachers, were translated into Portuguese. Nine secondary schools were selected to run the survey in Lisbon and its suburban areas. In this study, our aim was to measure the perception of both teachers´ and students´ regarding the teachers´ competences, as defined in the Common European Principles for Teacher Competences and Qualifications (2005). In this document, the key competences include the teacher´s ability to: work with others, with their fellow human beings; work with knowledge, technology and information and work with and in society. In Portugal, the students’ responses seem to show appreciation for their teachers’ professional competences in terms of knowledge, and also of their consistency and coherence; they consider that teachers respect them and allow them to state their opinions openly, but they also feel that the teachers are, somehow, distant (they don’t try to ‘put the student’s shoe’) and not open to new challenges, not committed enough to explore the learning opportunities outside the school walls. This indicates a need to include citizenship competences in teachers’ professional development.

Keywords:

Key competences, citizenship, teachers’ competences.