Priorities for the university education, and delivery methods

I deal in this paper with two main topics: the priorities for university education and delivery methods, looking both at the ideal goals of a university and at the practical situation. Nowadays the challenges in the knowledge and information society require high educational quality for large groups of population, and tertiary level education is needed for individual development, for cultural and economic progress and for competent active citizenship. It implies rethinking the role and the education forms of this ancient institution without losing its quality, paying attention to new challenges, like preparing students for a job and carrying out research for both scientific and economic development. I address the following issues: university mission, intellectual, research and teaching freedom, internationalization and European integration, democratization; I focus on delivery methods, thinking about innovative forms of teaching, learning and evaluating. High education should promote rational and critical autonomous thinking, wisdom, social competences together with research. Active teaching/learning methods, international exchange and formative/participative mid-semester evaluation encourage students to work better. Articulating explicitly how students are expected to perform in their learning process facilitates their success, and develope a basis for continuous improvement lasting aft er the university time.