Educational stakeholders have been underscoring the importance of developing students’ 21st-century skills in recent years (National Education Association, n.d.), as they are also seen as essential parts of quality education, and inherent to global competence as well. As the expression 21st-century skills is considered a buzzword and the notion of global competence has not been around for long, I deemed it more apposite to start inquiring about tutors’ perceptions of 21st-century skills first and then get closer to the notion in question. Therefore, instead of asking participants directly about the components of GC, they were asked to enumerate what knowledge, skills, attitudes and values a student should have to succeed in the 21st century. The respondents managed to enumerate several components, which can be seen in Table 4.1. The components mentioned multiple times by different respondents can be found in the first row (with the number of mentions in brackets), and the components mentioned by only one participant can be found in the second row.

 

 

The university tutors had no difficulty enumerating 21st-century skills, and as can be seen from Table 4.1, most of them mentioned three of the 4Cs, critical thinking, cooperation, and communication. Interestingly enough, creativity did not appear in their answers, only Ráhel referred to it fleetingly when mentioning problem-solving. Apart from the 4Cs, digital literacy and having ICT skills were listed by most participants, and in connection with this, the ability to look for reliable information on the internet. Moreover, Iván and Kristóf mentioned the importance of taking a stand, the ability to express their opinion convincingly about matters that are important to them. Iván and Magda both added that it is not enough to know things, students should have the desire to read up on information, to look more deeply into topics, to constantly broaden their horizons and to develop their knowledge, so they should become lifelong learners. Concerning the attitudes, they all indicated that to be successful, young people need to be open, open-minded towards change, open to different opinions and open to diversity. Iván and Magda added that they should be curious as well and go towards experiences where they encounter diversity. The interviewees had more difficulty grasping what knowledge people would need to succeed in the 21st century. Three of the participants questioned whether encyclopaedic knowledge is important in the 21st century and they claimed that it is more important to know where to find this sort of information. They placed more emphasis on professional, expert knowledge in one particular area and self-knowledge.