Report 99/26

Learning and teaching

Strategy and funding

Executive summary

Purpose

1. This report describes the responses to the consultation about our learning and teaching strategy (HEFCE 98/40); announces the allocation of funds within the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF); and provides information about the timetable for bidding for funds.

Key points

2. There is widespread support for our plan to establish a single, integrated fund to reward excellence and to support the development and enhancement of learning and teaching. Our learning and teaching strategy will direct funding at three levels: the institution, the subject, and the individual academic.

3. We will allocate £26 million to the TQEF in 1999-2000, £31 million in 2000-01 and £32 million in 2001-02.

4. The institutional strand of the TQEF will include support for the implementation of institutional learning and teaching strategies.

5. The Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL), and the Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) have been merged into a single programme.

This programme will be extended to a further phase by inviting subject-based bids from individual institutions and institutional consortia.

6. We will introduce in 1999-2000 a funding scheme which recognises and rewards individual academics who have demonstrated excellence in teaching.

7. In collaboration with the other funding bodies we will establish a learning and teaching support network. This network will ensure the effective transfer of existing experience, good practices and innovation in learning and teaching primarily through subject-based support networks and centres.

8. We will allocate capital funds to enable higher education institutions to invest in the capital infrastructure necessary to enhance learning and teaching.

Timetable for the TQEF

Action required

9. No responses to this document are required. Further information will be provided separately on the arrangements and timetable for the various strands of the TQEF, and for capital funding.

Background

10. HEFCE 98/40 outlined our strategy to support learning and teaching, and invited comments on our strategic priorities and funding proposals to promote and enhance high quality learning and teaching. Our strategy has five main purposes:

• encouragement and reward

• co-ordination and collaboration

• disseminating and embedding good practice

• research and innovation

• building capacity for change.

11. We received 138 responses to the consultation, from which four key messages emerged:

a. The need to prioritise the enhancement and improvement of learning and teaching as the principal funding aim – rewarding established excellence should be secondary to this.

b. The need to strengthen the institutional strand of the TQEF to deliver this objective.

c. Although bidding for TQEF funds is generally supported, there is a need to minimise the potential complexity and burden on institutions of a multi-strand funding approach.

d. Allocating additional student numbers as the sole institution-level funding stream to reward high quality provision is not a sufficient reward for excellence.

Developing excellence in learning and teaching

12. Although there is wide support for our learning and teaching strategy, there is a perceived tension between encouraging the sector as a whole to enhance learning and teaching - which is widely supported - and the selective approach of rewarding those institutions which can demonstrate high quality. The funding proposals in HEFCE 98/40 largely focused on rewarding high quality - for example, at the levels of the institution (additional student numbers), the subject (the extension of the FDTL) and the individual (for excellent teachers).

13. While our funding mechanisms will ensure a link between high quality and funding, we will place greater emphasis on the development and enhancement of learning and teaching. Further, to increase the profile and status of learning and teaching across the sector as a whole, we will introduce approaches to funding which will include all institutions.

Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF)

14. There is wide support for our proposal to establish a single integrated fund to reward excellence as well as to support the development and enhancement of learning and teaching. From 1999-2000 we will introduce a single TQEF which will include three strands of funding: institutional, subject and individual.

The institutional strand

15. Many respondents argued that the importance of the institutional role in developing and supporting excellence was not appropriately recognised in our proposals. In particular, they felt that allocating additional student numbers as the sole institution-level funding stream to recognise high quality was insufficient. Two main reasons were given. First, demand from students might not correlate with those areas of demonstrable high quality. Second, some institutions with high-quality provision might choose not to seek additional numbers because they believe that further growth could dilute the factors underpinning high quality.

16. Many respondents feel that an institution-wide approach is central to developing and enhancing learning and teaching. Therefore, there is a case for strengthening the institutional dimension in our funding, but not at the expense of the proposed subject strand. The argument remains convincing that the subject influence is very important for most academic staff.

Institutional learning and teaching strategies

17. The most important new consideration emerging from the responses and from our own thinking is the crucial role that institutions’ learning and teaching strategies could play within the TQEF. Such strategies are essential to ensuring institutional commitment to developing and maintaining high quality, and to raising the status and profile of teaching within institutions.

18. An important element of the TQEF will therefore be to support the implementation of institutional learning and teaching strategies. In particular, support will be directed at:

• assisting institutions to deliver strategies for teaching enhancement and improvement

• innovation in learning and teaching, especially in the use of communications and information technology (C&IT)

• transferring and adopting good practice

• activity related to employability, including work experience and key skills

• promoting and developing high-quality teaching staff.

19. Each institution will have its own priorities; the organisation, and its component parts will be at different stages of development. This stream of funding will help institutions to implement aspects of their strategy which they might otherwise be unable to do. We will require institutions to define specific outcomes against which we can monitor the effective use of our funding through the annual institutional operating statements.

20. To encourage the development and maintenance of high quality throughout the sector, our support for the implementation of institutional strategies needs to be inclusive rather than selective. Institutions will be entitled to this strand of funding when they demonstrate that a satisfactory learning and teaching strategy has been developed, is being implemented and monitored effectively, and has identifiable outcomes and activities which our funds will support. Funds will be allocated by an appropriate formula, not competitively, but will only be released when these conditions are met. This proposal has the additional advantage of reducing complexity and the burden of bidding.

21. We are considering, in the light of advice from our Learning and Teaching Committee, how this strand of the TQEF will operate in practice. We expect to provide guidance on the nature of effective institutional learning and teaching strategies, the extent of existing good practice, and how this could be promoted. We will provide advice to institutions on this strand of the TQEF in June 1999. We will start allocating funds to institutions in the latter half of 1999-2000.

Partnerships for quality improvement

22. There is strong support for using TQEF funds to support partnerships and networks between those who have demonstrated high quality and weaker providers. The aim of this element of the TQEF will be two-fold:

a. To raise the quality floor by focusing on the improvement of particular weaknesses in institutions, through partnerships with others that have strengths in those areas.

b. To aid the implementation of institutional learning and teaching strategies.

23. Our aim is to encourage links between groups - either within or between institutions - to enable them to work together and learn from each other. The individual and subject overview reports from the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) could, for example, help departments and institutions to link areas for improvement with providers able to give focused expertise and assistance.

24. Although we initially proposed this element of funding as a separate strand within the TQEF, it is clear from the comments received, and from our own thinking, that it is seen as integral to the implementation of institutional learning and teaching strategies. We therefore propose to specify such collaborative work as one of the key areas for which institutional funding for the implementation of strategies could be used. This will reduce the number and complexity of separate bidding exercises for funds under the TQEF.

Subject funding strand

25. Following the strong support in the consultation for our subject-based funding proposals, we propose to support two programmes.

Development activity

26. We have now merged into a single programme the previously separate FDTL and TLTP initiatives. We will extend this programme to a further phase. In June 1999 we will invite subject-based bids from individual institutions and consortia that have demonstrated high quality in the 16 units of assessment covered by the subject review process between October 1996 and September 1998.

27. Existing projects within the FDTL/TLTP programme that have been completed successfully will also be eligible to bid for small-scale funding to support additional activity designed to transfer project outcomes, ensure the longer term continuation of projects, and promote the accessibility of project outcomes. We will write to existing projects in March 1999 providing details of this strand of the TQEF.

Learning and teaching support network (LTSN)

28. The second element of the subject-based strand is to develop the infrastructure for the effective transfer of existing experience, good practices and innovation in learning and teaching through a subject-based support network. This programme follows a review of the Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) and the TLTP’s Teaching and Learning Technology Support Network (TLTSN). The review report was published in September 1998 (HEFCE 98/47). It recommended the establishment of a new broad-based programme of subject centres to act as comprehensive one-stop shops and information gateways to support learning and teaching. The learning and teaching support network will be UK-wide, so the four HE funding bodies undertook a specific consultation on the CTI review report’s recommendations.

29. The LTSN will consist of:

• 24 subject centres

• a Generic Learning and Teaching Centre

• a programme director and co-ordinator.

30. In March 1999 the funding bodies issued a joint publication inviting tenders for the subject centres.

Rewarding the individual

31. There is considerable support for a programme which recognises and rewards individual academics who have demonstrated excellence in learning and teaching. Many see national and institutional funding incentives that focus on individuals as being crucial levers in increasing the importance and status of learning and teaching. Furthermore, many argue that this element of the TQEF should be an early priority for the Council.

32. We recognise the concern of many respondents that any HEFCE scheme of individual grants for teaching excellence might conflict with institutional schemes in place or currently being developed. We will therefore consider in particular how this scheme could sit alongside institutional activity and be broadly administered by institutions.

33. We propose to introduce in 1999-2000 a funding scheme to support individual excellence in learning and teaching. Further details of this strand of the TQEF will be provided in June 1999.

Reducing complexity

34. Our funding proposals now fall into two main allocation mechanisms:

a. Formula funding - for the implementation of institutional strategies (including collaboration for quality improvement).

b. Bidding – for additional student numbers, for individual excellence, for grants to support subject-based development and for the subject-based support network.

35. These arrangements will keep to a minimum the burden on institutions.

Capital infrastructure support

36. In its December 1998 grant letter to the Council, the Government included separate capital funds to invest in the capital infrastructure for learning and teaching. We will allocate funds to enable us to address some of the infrastructure needs identified in the survey of teaching equipment in higher education institutions in England and Wales. This was conducted jointly by the HEFCE, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) and Standing Conference of Principals (SCOP) and published in September 1997 - Ref M 17/97. In particular, we will concentrate a significant proportion of funds on improving teaching facilities and laboratories, general teaching equipment (including engineering equipment) and studios. We will provide further information about capital funding in June 1999.

Evaluation

37. We envisage that bids for implementing learning and teaching strategies will be to undertake specific activities, and that we will be able to monitor the extent to which our funds are used for the stated purposes. We will commission formative and summative evaluations of the subject-based support programmes. Additionally, we will develop an appropriate form of evaluation for our strategy as a whole. Successful dissemination of good practice will be an important element of our new approach.

Allocation of funds

38. The summary of funding allocated through the TQEF, shown below, does not include additional resources provided through the allocation of additional student numbers, and through capital funding.