Higher education for modern societies – Competences and values

تم النشر بتاريخ 02-11-2021

Higher education for modern societies – Competences and values Preface Radu Damian Why a preface? This was the first question that I asked myself when accepting the responsibility of writing a preface to this new book of the Council of Europe, part of the Higher Education Series. Is a preface really necessary when the reader has the table of contents available? Are prefaces always needed? My own answer to this “existential” question was obviously positive since you are reading the preface – hopefully with interest. The main motive behind the decision is that for universities a subject such as “converging competences for democratic society” is not usually one found near the top of their list of missions, not to mention their day-to-day practice. For obvious reasons, universities, which I see as “small, autonomous societies” with their own priorities and internal rules, are faced with more and more challenges. The economic dimension of their existence, related to study programmes, teaching methods, learning environment, quality assurance, student numbers, research results leading to prestige in the scientific community and other urgent issuesfacing them, leaves little room for reflection in the academic community and the university leadership about values they take for granted, such as democracy, citizenship and intercultural dialogue. Therefore, I thought that if this book is meant to become known and to appeal to people from universities, my brief preface should contribute to stimulating their curiosity to read it.

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