Social Competencies and Global Skills—Professional Competences of University Teachers of Engineering Programmes

Abstract

Globalization of education is closely connected to increasing personality requirements for university teachers who should be well-educated professionals as well as mature personalities coping with interactions not only within the environment of their faculty or university, but also in the broader new global environment. As they are expected to provide complex training of the graduates for the practice in the globalized world, they are supposed to have mastered not only professional and pedagogical competences, but also social competences which belong amongst the key competences. This contribution deals with the issue of social competences amongst which we also include specific group of global skills. The issue of competences can be perceived as a challenge for the whole educational system, including the training of future teachers who in the new global environment gradually change into global teachers. For realization of educational activities at universities in the new global environment intercultural and global competencies or global skills are important in particular. Not only they facilitate fulfilling of educational goals, they also provide complex training of the graduates for the practice in different fields of science and technology with regard to the the fact that they will then realize teaching in the new global economic and social environment. At the same time they provide easier communication and cooperation with different subjects at schools, universities and in the broader social environment. In the contribution we provide a summary of definitions and opinions of different authors on this issue. Currently these are considered to make a part of the “professional competence” of a global teacher who can understand the changes in the global environment and react to them flexibly through his pedagogical activities. No matter to what extent the competencies along with knowledge and skills are considered to represent goals and simultaneously results of education, social competences of university teachers should be currently perceived as an issue that demands increasing attention also from university pedagogy which is understood as an important prerequisite of quality pedagogical work of a university teacher. This issue actually became a matter of interest of numerous university workplaces.