At this current time in the history of our peoples, we are facing a global crisis of culture and identity (Appiah, 2016) as evidenced through, for example, the rise in nationalism across Europe, the pathway to BREXIT and the impending ‘wall building’ between the USA and Mexico. An acknowledgement of this trajectory has led to the notion of Global Competence which is fast rising to the forefront of the European and International agenda with the hope that the development of such a competence will enable us to ‘live harmoniously in multicultural communities’ (OECD, 2018) going forward. Indeed, the acquisition of Global Competence has become increasingly important (OECD, 2018 & 2009; EU, 2018; Picardo, 2012; Facer, 2011; Clifford and Montgomery, 2011) as countries across Europe face increasing challenges, e.g. the integration of newly arrived peoples through the migration crisis, preparing our youth for life in a digitally interconnected global society, where they face uncertain futures as we enter what some argue is the 4th Industrial Revolution (Schwab, 2016). Such challenges require people to develop skills, knowledge, values, attitudes and understandings that enable us to live and work effectively in diverse societies. However Reimers (2009) suggests that the teaching of Global Competence is hindered from becoming a reality through what he terms as ‘an obsolete mind-set’ where the compartmentalization of curricula prevents teachers from approaching their subject from an interdisciplinary perspective. Moreover if educators themselves are not Globally Competent, it is unlikely that they will be able to develop this in their students (Gaudelli, 2016). Although there has been some work done in schools around Global Competence this has not been effectively addressed within Higher Education programmes (Gaudelli, 2016; West, 2012; Zhao, 2010; Longview Foundation, 2009) so that new teachers leaving university are often unaware of the need for Global Competence and are unskilled to integrate the teaching of such competencies within the curricula. This project directly addresses this challenge by working with teacher educators and trainee teachers (defined as anyone who is training to teach at any level, whether they are doing this in university or school or other settings) across the EU to achieve a key objective: to develop future cohorts of teachers who are both Globally Competent themselves but also have the skills to develop Global Competence in their students. This objective will be addressed through the development of five activities which can be summarised thus: 1. Scoping Exercise and Curriculum Mapping activity that will generate a series of reports aimed at teacher educators, policy-makers and school leaders. 2. The development of Globally Competent Teacher Educators through interactive resources that will provide a platform where Global Competence can be learned about and explored within ITE programmes. 3. An Awareness Raising Campaign directed at School Leaders that will present compelling evidence in multiple formats, so that Global Competence will be strategically embedded within schools. 4. A Flexible Training Programme for Trainee Teachers that will support trainee teachers as they learn to both become Globally Competent themselves and learn how to develop Global Competence in their students once they become qualified teachers in schools. 5. Academic Outputs to highlight the outcomes and impact of the project and to support the dissemination of intellectual outputs amongst academics, policy-makers and other stakeholders. In addition to these activities, we will establish a transnational Global Competence Network of Educators to share, explore and validate Global Competence training within respective national teacher education programmes. The project will draw upon a Design Based Research Methodology which will guide all phases of the project including the collection of evidence to measure impact on participants, participating organisations and their stakeholders. DBR is fundamentally participatory, employing inclusive, cooperative evaluation methods to involve learners and key stakeholders. Throughout the project, we aim to involve a wide variety of stakeholders which will include academic staff, teacher educators, trainee teachers, non-formal and informal education providers, school leaders, teachers, education authorities, policy makers, leaders of multinationals and NGO executives. We anticipate that stakeholder organisations and associations which have been involved in the creation of the project outputs will endorse and recommend these resources and that the academic outputs from the respective countries are recognised as nationally outstanding reference materials to validate the effective teaching of Global Competence and are widely cited by other academics, peers and organisations.
For students in schools to learn about and themselves become globally competent, a step change is required in Higher Education through the creation and promotion of activities which develop globally competent teacher educators. These teacher educators can then embed global competence within programmes of study for trainee teachers. The project focused on a) supporting teacher educators through professional development activities enabling them to become globally competent and in b) designing materials suitable for varied teacher education programmes that raise awareness of and foster global competence in trainee teachers. Although there has been some work done in schools around global competence, this has not been effectively addressed within Higher Education programmes (Gaudelli, 2016; West, 2012; Zhao, 2010; Longview Foundation 2009). This project directly addressed this challenge by working with teacher educators and trainee teachers across the EU to achieve its key objective: To develop future cohorts of teachers who are both globally competent themselves, but also have the skills to develop global competence in their students.
At this current time in the history of our peoples, we are facing a global crisis of culture and identity (Appiah, 2016). Discourse appears to revolve around our differences, rather than an exploration of what makes us similar. An acknowledgement of this trajectory has led to the notion of global competence which is fast rising to the forefront of the European and International agenda. Although the importance of global competence is evidenced through 3 of the 6 priorities listed in the Education & Training 2020 - EC Strategic Framework and through the launch of a new test in the PISA Framework in 2018, some EU countries do not view global competence as a priority, as suggested by its non-inclusion in the PISA tests for those countries. Moreover, although frameworks for global competence are beginning to emerge and be tested, it is widely recognised (AFS Global Competence Conference, 2018; Schleicher, 2018) that embedding the teaching of global competence in schools has not been achieved, in part because it is unclear how it can be integrated into teacher professional development and school curricula and assessments.