The impact of a national policy to enhance teaching quality and status, England, the United Kingdom
| Date | 01 September 2004 |
| Published date | 01 September 2004 |
| Pages | 136-149 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880410548762 |
| Author | David Gosling |
| Subject Matter | Education |
The impact of a national
policy to enhance
teaching quality and
status, England, the
United Kingdom
David Gosling
The author
David Gosling is a Director of Critical Change Consultants for
Higher Education, Langport, UK.
Keywords
Teaching, Quality, Higher education, Government policy,
United Kingdom
Abstract
The Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund was established by the
Higher Education Funding Council for England, UK, with the
declared aims of enhancing the quality of teaching and learning
and raising the status of teaching among higher education
institutions. This paper considers the three strands of the
initiative – subject, institutional, and individual – and uses
findings from a variety of evaluation studies to assess the impact
of this state sponsored policy. The difficulties in creating cultural
change within higher education are discussed. The paper argues,
with cautious optimism, that there is evidence of increased
attention being paid to teaching in higher education in England,
in part, as a consequence of this funded initiative, but that the
evidence for wholesale cultural change remains difficult to
interpret.
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Introduction
Achieving change in the culture of a higher
education system is inevitably a long and difficult
process – especially in one which has a long
history, a strong sense of its identity and a tradition
of autonomy from government. It is a bold step for
the government of an advanced industrial nation to
attempt to bring about a political goal which
requires change across 132 universities and
colleges. This paper considers one such attempt –
namely by the Higher Education Funding Council
for England (HEFCE). The goal of the policy was
to raise the status and quality of teaching. This
paper offers an analysis of this policy initiative and,
using evidence derived from evaluations of
activities within it, to make some (no doubt
partial) assessment of its success.
What is TQEF?
The Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund
(TQEF) of the Higher Education Funding
Council for England (HEFCE) has been a state
funded initiative in which some activities have
been running since 1995, and other parts were
introduced as late as 1999 (HEFCE, 1999, p. 48).
The TQEF has been designed to address five main
strategic purposes. These were identified in the
following terms:
(1) Encouragement and reward. Increasing the
status of teaching and rewarding those who do
it well.
(2) Co-ordination and collaboration. Rationalising
funding council (HEFCE)’s activities and
encouraging collaboration with other
agencies.
(3) Disseminating and embedding good practice.
Supporting the LTSN (Learning and
Teaching Support Network) and other
activities in dissemination.
(4) Research and innovation. Building on good
examples of innovation and supporting
innovative learning and teaching methods.
(5) Building capacity for change. Funding capital
and infrastructure support (HEFCE, 1999,
p. 48).
The perceived problems within the UK university
sector which the initiative was designed to tackle
are implied in the goals of the TQEF.Teaching was
thought to lack status; promotion was awarded for
research performance only in most higher
Quality Assurance in Education
Volume 12 · Number 3 · 2004 · pp.136-149
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited · ISSN 0968-4883
DOI 10.1108/09684880410548762
Although all the author has worked with one of the
organisations discussed in this paper (NCT), the
views expressed are his alone and not those of the
organisations for which he worked or of the HEFCE.
136
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