Competency Profile of the Teaching Profession in Croatia After Initial Education

Abstract

The teachers’ competence profile is in a constant discrepancy due to demands posed by life in the contemporary world of change. The base for the development of teachers’ professional competences is set during initial education, although professional qualifications continue to be developed further through internship, teaching practice and lifelong professional training. Teachers’ competences have to be expanded from traditional to new ones, such as the skill to diagnose pupils’ needs for learning, the ability to methodically designate the environment for active learning and the development of competences, the ability of critical deliberation about achieved work results and individual research with the aim to implement innovations in teaching, develop collaboration and organization skills and other competences necessary to the teacher who searches for his or her way, and is not only the realiser of other people’s ideas.This paper presents the results obtained by comparing teachers’ competences quoted in some teacher study curricula in Croatia (Universities of Pula, Rijeka and Zadar) as to determine if the description of competences implies a teacher who is the leader and animator of the learning process, the one ready for reflection and research, or it indicates a teacher who is the technical realiser of the curriculum.