UNIVERSITY: Strategic Asset for the Training of a Global Citizen

We can have a clear idea of how global citizenship may contribute to the long term goal of sustainable world development. This raises two main questions, namely, what are the key competencies needed for people to be able to adapt to this rapidly changing and highly interconnected world and how we can provide people with adequate opportunities to learn these competencies. Education in general, and university programs specifically, are the most effective means of building global citizenship. The ability of the future generations to be adequately motivated and capable of shaping the sustainable development of a global society depends to a large extent on the effectiveness of our education programs. Most universities today are not only engaged in preparing their students to become globally aware, but they are also reinforcing the global dimension of their teaching methods and course materials. The first step towards bringing about a change in the understanding of the concept of global citizenship is to help students to relate information and conceptual categories to the ‘untidiness’ of the real world. They must see the link between conceptually well organized theories and their less structured personal experience. Capacity building uses all the resources and capabilities of a country: human, scientific, technological, organizational, and institutional. Regarding global citizenship, the major question is what do our students do with the knowledge we imparted to them? Does what we teach them really have an impact? It is in facing these challenges that universities are playing for the future: knowledge and global expertise will shape the citizens of the new millennium. In this direction moves University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’ .