July 2003/36
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| To: | Heads of HEFCE-funded higher education institutions Heads of HEFCE-funded further education colleges Heads of universities in Northern Ireland |
| Of interest to those responsible for: | Academic and strategic planning |
| Reference: | 2003/36 |
| Publication date: | July 2003 |
| Enquiries to: |
Nicola Oates Paul Hazell |
Executive summary (read on-line)
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Consultation
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Executive summary
Purpose
1. This document invites higher education institutions (HEIs) and further education colleges (FECs) to contribute to the development of proposals for Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. It sets out our proposed approach to these centres and selection method, and prompts institutions to provide feedback on the proposals.
Key points
2. This consultation builds on proposals set out in our strategic plan and the Government's higher education (HE) White Paper 'The future of higher education'. The proposals focus on our twin aims for this initiative - to reward excellent teaching practice and to invest in that practice further so that the funding delivers substantial benefits to institutions, teachers and students.
3. We are proposing five main objectives for the funding:
- to reward practice that demonstrates excellent learning outcomes for students
- to identify 'beacons' of good teaching practice and encourage development of this practice so that the benefits are delivered more widely
- to enable institutions to develop approaches to teaching and learning that encourage a deeper understanding within the sector of methods of addressing student learning needs
- to encourage collaboration and sharing of good practice and so enhance the standard of teaching throughout the sector
- to contribute to the information available to inform student choice.
To emphasise the importance of the way in which we hope centres will develop overall understanding of excellent teaching, we are suggesting that they are called Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL).
4. We are suggesting that a CETL could be described in a number of ways, and invite institutions to identify and describe what is distinctive about their teaching practice that makes it excellent. In this way we hope that institutions will think flexibly and creatively about how they define their excellent practice beyond departmental or subject boundaries. We suggest that distinctive practice could be across a spectrum of activities; be based on sub-degree, degree and/or postgraduate provision and include teams of both academic and support staff.
5. Through the funding of this initiative we wish to encourage institutions to reward excellent teaching practitioners; develop existing excellent practice; develop innovative approaches to learning and teaching, and share and embed this learning. We think that CETLs will have different ideas about how they wish to do this, and will invite institutions to submit business plans to describe their plans. We are committed to building complementary roles for CETLs and the proposed HE Academy for quality enhancement, so that the Academy is able to effectively disseminate the work of the CETLs while they focus on delivery and development of teaching.
6. We have suggested an alternative approach to the funding levels and numbers of CETLs which gives institutions more flexibility to determine the size of the funding required. We propose that institutions could bid for between £200,000 and £500,000 per year in recurrent funding over the five years and up to £2 million in capital funding. We hope that this would result in more than 70 CETLs being established and at sizes that make sense for institutions.
7. We would welcome bids from individual institutions and collaborative bids from any institution directly funded by HEFCE, including further education colleges with over 500 full-time equivalent (FTE) directly funded HE students. Collaborative bids could include directly and indirectly funded partners, and include staff funded through the Teacher Training Agency and NHS. We plan to limit the number of bids an institution can make based on the size of the bidding institution.
8. The selection method we have outlined is in two stages. The first stage would focus on evidencing the identified excellent practice and would include an outline business case of how the CETL would develop and use the funding. The second stage requires institutions to develop a detailed business plan, and we would provide some funding towards the cost of this. We have reviewed the selection method to ensure we are not placing an undue administrative burden on institutions and have considered how institutions can use existing information in support of their bid.
9. The assessment of bids and selection of CETLs will be undertaken by a sub-group of the Quality Assessment, Learning and Teaching (QALT) Committee. We are inviting nominations for membership of this assessment panel: Annex D provides further details.
Action required
10. Respondents are asked to:
- Return their responses to the consultation questions at Annex A by e-mail to cetlconsultation@hefce.ac.uk by Friday 24 October 2003.
- Return their delegate booking form for the consultation seminars referred to in Annex B to cetlconsultation@hefce.ac.uk by Tuesday 26 August 2003.
- Return their nominations for membership of the assessment panel referred to in Annex D to p.hazell@hefce.ac.uk by Friday 24 October 2003.
11. In the interests of openness and transparency, we will make responses publicly available unless respondents specifically ask us to keep them confidential.