ERIC Number: EJ1044958
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0309-877X
EISSN: N/A
Quality after the Cuts? Higher Education Practitioners' Accounts of Systemic Challenges to Teaching Quality in Times of "Austerity"
Feigenbaum, Anna; Iqani, Mehita
Journal of Further and Higher Education, v39 n1 p46-66 2015
What are the ramifications of current changes in the higher education landscape in the UK for the ways in which teaching staff perceive their teaching practices? What impact are funding cuts, increases in student fees and the concomitant increased workloads having on faculty morale? How might this influence "quality cultures" in teaching in media, communications, cultural studies and related disciplines, and higher education more broadly? To investigate issues around teaching quality enhancement and teaching quality assurance in the changing higher education environment in the UK, we designed an innovative "Teaching Exchange" (TE) workshop, which ran during 2010 and 2011 in Media and Communications departments at five diverse higher education institutions around England. Drawn from discussions with over 40 faculty members, this paper provides an account of how our TE workshop participants viewed the current structural constraints on teaching quality in regard to: (1) changing teaching loads, (2) the marketisation of degree programmes and (3) the internationalisation of student bodies without adequate support structures. In reporting on these challenges to quality in teaching, this paper contributes to the generation of alternatives to the existing top-down bureaucratisation of teaching quality control.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Educational Change, Retrenchment, Teacher Attitudes, Teacher Morale, Educational Practices, Faculty Workload, Teacher Exchange Programs, Teacher Effectiveness, Quality Assurance, Workshops, Commercialization, Academic Degrees, Global Approach, Educational Policy, Higher Education
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A