Teaching and the Pedagogical Training of University Teaching Staff – Practice and Opinions under Slovenian Higher Education Legislation

Online international learning and the inclusion of intercultural and international dimensions in the curriculum are closely connected concepts, not only in theory but also in strategic documents and teaching practice. This article presents statistical connections between online international learning and the inclusion of intercultural and international dimensions in the curriculum, based on a survey that included 1367 Slovene academics (19.7% of the entire population). According to the χ² and Mann–Whitney tests, it was determined that academics who actively include students in any kind of online international learning with institutions from geographically distant areas, and those academics who consider the ICT support at their home institutions as satisfactory for the implementation of online international learning, statistically significantly more often incorporate international and intercultural elements into the study process, covering internationalised learning outcomes, internationalised learning and teaching activities, and internationalised assessment and evaluation tasks.

The internationalization of higher education has become a central focus in contemporary higher education policies, where various demands, motives, and meanings are attributed to higher education institutions and management in the global and international environment. The complex relationship between globalization and internationalization is briefly explored in the article, as well as motives and drivers for the internationalization of higher education at both national and institutional levels, with university management considering it a strategic priority. Through semi-structured interviews with representatives of Slovene higher education stakeholders, it was found that university management emphasizes the significance of internationalization as a strategic priority and as part of the university’s daily activities, highlighting its integration into research, education, various networks, projects, etc. The article underscores that internationalization serves as a means and driver for changes, raising quality, improvements, employability, and innovations in higher education, fostering a knowledge-based society, and addressing the challenges of the globalized world, which were highlighted by the respondents. In the final part of the article, suggestions for improvements and further research activities are presented.

Developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences provides future graduates with several benefits, wherein they are equipped for the globalized, intercultural world imbued with all of its uncertainties, diversities, and opportunities, both at the workplace and in everyday life. Entrepreneurial higher education institutions are characterized by an international and intercultural perspective – however, an institution cannot be entrepreneurial without being international, yet it can be international without being entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial university provides a good environment, culture, and practices that enhance student entrepreneurship. Internationalisation, entrepreneurship, and in this context international entrepreneurship education are important topics to which academics and higher education institutions have increasingly devoted attention in recent years. This article discusses various aspects of developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences, which are affected by different approaches to intercultural learning and teaching in the context of entrepreneurship education. In the last part of the paper, results are presented of quantitative research among Slovenian academics who teach business, IT, and services disciplines. Findings have shown that independent variables like teaching international students, providing distance learning with foreign institutions, inclusion of academics in training courses, and academics’ international mobility all influence the frequency of using intercultural and entrepreneurial aspects in higher education learning and teaching practices.

Globalisation, internationalisation, and other dynamic factors require higher education institutions to foster the development of graduates who are well-equipped to function in a multicultural and rapidly changing world. It is crucial for higher education institutions to respond effectively to the needs of a global, multicultural environment by systematically and holistically integrating international and intercultural dimensions into their study programmes. This can be achieved through implementation of internationalisation at home and internationalisation of the curriculum. In this article, the theoretical foundations of these concepts are presented and justified, beginning with theoretical definition of the internationalisation of higher education and focusing on key aspects of this process, with a particular emphasis on the motivations for and approaches to introducing an internationalised curriculum. Concrete examples of the implementation of an internationalised curriculum are provided based on the theory of constructive alignment. The article concludes with a critical discussion on the challenges faced in the practical implementation of an internationalised curriculum.