The UK Parliament’s Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee report on Students and Universities was released on 20 July 2009. Section 4 on teaching and learning makes specific comment on the research-teaching synergies, the QAA, the Higher Education Academy, and teaching qualifications in HE. A PDF version of the report is also available. For the time poor I offer a few “power extracts” and one distinctly “low power” technology reference.
Let’s start with the low power bit. So does the report have anything to say about technology and learning? Not very much at all but the committee’s 30 October 2008 call for evidence and the subsidiary questions and fora did not seek to explore this aspect . While section 4 of the report focused on Teaching and Learning, technology was obviously considered a non-strategic issue. Ironically, the consulation with individual students for this section was done online. It’s worth noting that this individual e-consultation received a maximum of 41 responses – with uncertainty whether these were unique responses. The one explicit reference to technology is to be found in section 5 of the report (Standards and Quality) and then only to minimise it’s relevance.
Para 274 – Plagiarism
“Simplistic reactions to the problems of plagiarism, like a retreat to exams or a reliance on technology are not the solution … “
Now for those power extracts with big potential consequences for everyone if this report is translated into political action:
Para 307. We are clear that the sector needs to address the question of standards now. We have called for a new quality and standards agency, answerable jointly to higher education institutions and the Government, and reporting annually to Parliament. We envisage that such a body, expanding significantly from the work that the Quality Assurance Agency has done, will build and rejuvenate the limbs of the existing system that until relatively recently was working well—in particular, the system of external examiners—and to provide the best way to safeguard the integrity of standards in English higher education institutions.
Para 308. It will also naturally be part of such a development that the relationship between this new agency and the Higher Education Academy be reviewed, including clarification of the key responsibility for quality enhancement in regard to the student experience. Although we had reservations about the operation of the Academy, it could and, we believe, should have a key role in promoting and enhancing academic standards.
Para 309. The key to the successful transformation of higher education in England in the next decade will be to move away from a culture fixated on the most prestigious research-intensive universities and the results of the Research Assessment Exercise (and its replacement) to one where other models of study and university can thrive and excellence is recognised and rewarded for teaching supported by scholarship.
So there we have it. A call for a revamped QAA and a proposal for the HE Academy to have a key role in ‘promoting’ and ‘enhancing’ academic standards. The difficulties arise when the ‘hard’ concepts of monitoring and policing are mixed with the “softer” concepts of promoting and enhancing. The latter always requires persuasion, co-operation and community engagement and participation to succeed; and that can take longer to achieve than those viewing a political horizon sometimes are comfortable with.
I guess we will have to see if any of the above impact upon the Framework for Higher Education to be published by the UK government’s Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) later in the year; followed by whatever winds of political change blow thereafter.
