14. Memorandum submitted by the Institute
for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE)
I BACKGROUND
INFORMATION ON
THE ILTHE
1. The Institute for Learning and Teaching
in Higher Education (ILTHE) welcomes the opportunity to give evidence
to the Education and Skills Committee on its views of the Government's
plans for the future of higher education. Set up in 1999 as a
response to the Dearing Report (National Committee for Inquiry
into Higher Education 1997), the ILTHE is the professional body
for all who teach and support learning in higher education.
2. The ILTHE exists to:
— enhance the status of teaching by
championing the professionalism of those engaged with the process;
— improve the experience of learning
through the commitment to ongoing professional development by
individuals who are accredited by the organisation on the basis
of training in HE teaching or recognition of their experience
and expertise;
— support innovation in higher education
by reviewing new developments in learning and teaching and disseminating
useful and innovative approaches.
3. The ILTHE is a fast-growing body that
has admitted more than 15,000 members in three years, representing
some 12% of eligible staff within the profession. This is a remarkably
high number given the voluntary status of membership and the demanding
nature of the application process.
4. It confers professional recognition on
teachers and others who support learning in higher education by
admitting individuals to membership through a rigorous process
of peer review (called the Individual Entry Route for Experienced
Staff), and by implementing the largest UK-wide framework for
accrediting training programmes in HE teaching provided by higher
education institutions (HEIs). Since its inception the ILTHE has
accredited 136 such programmes at 109 HE institutions as routes
leading to eligibility for Membership, and a further 23 programmes
at 23 institutions leading to eligibility for Associate membership.
5. Membership is open not only to academic
teaching staff but to the whole range of staff who support learning
in the multi-professional teams who increasingly deliver higher
education, including librarians, learning technologists, staff
and educational developers, careers officers, student counsellors
and senior managers including Vice-Chancellors.
6. An increasing number of HEIs recognise
or require ILTHE membership as a criterion in staff promotion
or probation.
7. The ILTHE is currently developing a Continuing
Professional Development (CPD) framework for members to enable
them to remain in good standing, and are consulting members, HE
institutions, other professional bodies and other HE stakeholders
on its implementation.
8. The ILTHE, jointly with the Learning
and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) and the Higher Education Staff
Development Agency (HESDA), is one of partners who have been working
with the Teaching Quality Enhancement Committee (TQEC) in developing
proposals for a national teaching quality academy (mentioned in
paragraph 4.25 of the White Paper).
9. We also work in partnership with, and
in formulating our accreditation and CPD schemes have drawn on
the expertise of, a wide range of other bodies, including the
Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA), the Association
for Learning Technology (ALT), JISC (Joint information Systems
Committee) agencies such as TechDis, the National Co-ordination
Team for the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund, the Chartered
Institute of Library and Information Professionals (formerly the
Library Association), the National Association of Teachers in
Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) and professional bodies
including the British Psychological Society, General Teaching
Council, General Social Care Council and Nursing and Midwifery
Council.
II RESPONSE TO
THE WHITE
PAPER
Setting national professional standards for teaching
(paragraph 4.14)
10. The ILTHE strongly supports the move
towards a professional teaching focus in universities: this is
central to our mission. We look forward to playing an active part
in setting national professional standards for teaching and ensuring
that teaching staff are provided with opportunities for Continuing
Professional Development (CPD), building on our frameworks for
accreditation which are well-accepted within the sector.
11. We note that the White Paper expects
all new teaching staff to obtain a qualification which meets these
standards from 2006. Based on our outstanding success in accrediting
programmes of training in teaching and learning for HE staff throughout
the UK, we believe that this is an achievable target and that
we are uniquely placed to help Government deliver it. In doing
so we would build on the sound foundation for accreditation we
have established over the past three years.
12. Universities increasingly expect their
new lecturers to complete a programme of training in teaching.
We have to date accredited 159 such programmes in 111 HEIs, and
we estimate that some 6,000 people have now completed an ILTHE-accredited
programme (though not all of these have yet perceived sufficient)
incentives to join the ILTHE). It is now the case that almost
all HEIs offer or have access to an ILTHE-accredited course for
their staff. When the ILTHE was established in 1999, the number
of courses focusing on HE teaching was no more than 60. This is
a clear and positive performance indicator for the effect the
ILTHE has had on professionalising teaching in the HE sector.
Almost all the new programmes of training have been designed to
align directly with ILTHE standards and many courses have been
significantly enhanced to meet the standards.
13. However, to date most higher education
institutions (HEIs) have not been able to provide the same level
of professional development for their more experienced staff.
The work we have pioneered in developing an individual route to
ILTHE membership for experienced staff, together with the CPD
framework that we are currently developing for our members, will
provide HEIs with opportunities to develop flexible training programmes
that meet the needs of experienced staff. Our CPD framework is
designed to align with institutional requirements for CPD. For
example, the University of Birmingham has two accredited programmes:
one—currently a direct route to ILTHE Membership—is
a general programme aimed primarily at staff new to teaching in
HE; the other—which forms a route to ILTHE Associateship—is
made up of various subject-based shorter programmes, containing
contributions from the LTSN Subject Centres, aimed at those who
want discipline-specific training.
14. Because of the acknowledged pre-eminence
of research as the primary driver for rewards, status and funding
in HE, teaching staff as a body have not hitherto been naturally
very enthusiastic about improving learning and teaching. ILTHE
members represent a group of people who have demonstrated their
commitment to improving the learning experience for their students.
Their level of personal commitment is demonstrated by the fact
that although some 38% of HEIs pay the first or subsequent years'
membership fees for their staff, many members have chosen to renew
their membership for the second or third year from their own funds.
The ILTHE has encouraged over 17,000 staff to apply for membership
in the short space of three years, which proves that it is possible
to mobilise a significant proportion of staff in an unrewarding
context.
15. It is important that professional standards
are agreed by the teachers themselves, who have a significant
role to play in quality enhancement: this is the principle on
which the ILTHE operates. We attribute our success in recruiting
a substantial proportion of the sector to the use of rigorous
peer review in our accreditation procedures. Our procedures are
thus cognate with external examiner system, and we would expect
the training of external examiners as proposed in the White Paper
(paragraph 4.16) to be undertaken on the same principles.
16. We believe that this model—not
currently proposed in the TQEC's plans for the Academy for the
Advancement of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education—has
distinct advantages in encouraging teachers' ownership of and
engagement with the development of professional standards. It
would in our view deliver the best possible use of public funding.
Recognising and rewarding excellence in teaching
(paragraphs 4.17-4.19, 4.26-4.27)
17. We welcome the White Paper's recognition
of excellence in teaching as a university's core mission, and
its proposals to reward good teaching at institutional and departmental
level: these points were strongly made in our submission to in
response to the DfES discussion papers Issues for Higher Education.
18. Our members are particularly concerned
at the relative paucity of promotion opportunities for staff based
on their teaching ability, although these are more evident than
was the case five years ago.
19. We are delighted that the White Paper
recognises the success and influence of the highly regarded National
Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS), which we pioneered, developed
and manage on behalf of the Higher Education Funding Council for
England and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern
Ireland, and we welcome the proposals to double the scheme in
size (paragraph 4.27).
20. The Scheme is unique internationally
in the level of recognition it provides for staff who are dedicated
university teachers and has done a great deal to raise the profile
of learning and teaching in HEIs. Since its inception three years
ago, a number of NTFS award holders have been awarded Personal
Chairs in recognition of their work in teaching and learning support.
Such appointments remain, however, a minority of those promoted
to Readerships and Professorships. The ILTHE would argue that
systems to recognise and reward performance need to reward equally
the key functions of university staff: research and teaching.
A number of universities have, as a result of the existence of
the NTFS, established their own internal Fellowship schemes to
recognise and reward excellent teaching (for example, De Montfort
University, and the University of Leeds, whose Teaching Fellowship
Scheme is based on the NTFS criteria which "provide a benchmark
for the qualities and attributes that constitute excellence").
Spreading best practice in teaching (paragraphs
4.24-4.30)
21. The report of the joint HEFCE/UUK/SCOP
Teaching Quality Enhancement Committee (TQEC), as well as the
White Paper, recommends the creation of a new unitary body (the
"Academy") to support quality enhancement in teaching
by sponsoring and developing good practice as well as setting
standards. As one of the partners involved in the development
of this proposal, the ILTHE believes that it represents a good
opportunity to take forward quality enhancement, subject to certain
important provisos (which we outline in our recommendations to
Government in paragraph 26 below).
22. While we welcome the proposals for Centres
of Excellence (paragraph 4. 28-4.30), we recommend that the criteria
for identifying them should be assessed carefully to ensure that
they engage practitioners rather than exclusively or mainly the
educational specialists. The experience of the Teaching and Learning
Research Programme (TLRP) and the Computers in Teaching Initiative
(CTI) suggests that the "trickle-down" model may not
adequately deliver a high level of penetration or produce widespread
cultural change.
23. In order to ensure that such Centres
of Excellence do not remain isolated pockets of exemplary practice,
the Government would do well to look at other models of spreading
best practice. The ILTHE's engagement of its members in contributing
to quality enhancement resources—for example by writing
for our Journal and book series, participating in our Annual Conference,
giving workshops at our 25 annual members' regional and specialist
forums and bidding for our Small Grants for small-scale projects
that will make a demonstrable difference to learning—has
allowed us to reach out beyond the restricted network of educationalists
to the ordinary practitioner "on the ground".
University title—focusing on teaching (paragraph
4.31-4.35)
24. Our members welcome the long overdue
recognition of teaching (paragraph 4.31) but would argue strongly
against the separation of universities into teaching-only and
research-only institutions. Most ILTHE members would agree that
good research and good teaching are inextricably linked. We believe
that establishing research-only and teaching-only HEIs, if that
is the intention of the White Paper in changing the criteria for
awarding the University title, would not necessarily improve the
learning experience for students, as it would prevent them from
having access to front-line researchers, would fail to train the
academics of the future and would perpetuate a residual binary
division of universities into elite research institutions and
less-highly-valued institutions focused on teaching. Such a division
would, we believe, disadvantage precisely those students who have
struggled to overcome barriers to HE, and who are likely to be
ghettoised into the less prestigious (and possibly less expensive)
institutions.
25. Currently those institutions that do
best in attracting a more representative range of students are
those that are likely to have most to lose in a highly differentiated
system. Any rebalancing of resources should reward those institutions
that have done most to redress disadvantage.
Widening participation and access
26. Our members strongly support the principles
of widening participation and fair access, and have a good track
record in initiatives to ensure that students from non-traditional
backgrounds develop the skills necessary both to succeed in their
studies and to maximise their eligibility for the job market.
A section of the members' only area on our website is dedicated
to original articles on widening participation and student retention,
to stimulate debate and share good ideas, and we are currently
engaged with HESDA and the LTSN in establishing a task group in
this area. However, our members stress that widening participation,
and the continued expansion of student numbers and consequent
overcrowding, cannot continue much further without the provision
of additional dedicated resources.
Recommendations to Government
27. We believe that the White Paper's and
the TQEC's proposals for a teaching quality Academy could provide
significant opportunities for the improvement and support of learning
and teaching, provided that:
— the Academy has practitioner involvement
and ownership at all levels;
— it focuses on the student experience;
— it is seen as independent and able
to speak freely on behalf of the sector on all learning and teaching
issues;
— its guiding principles recognise
the importance of academic freedom.
28. However, while welcoming the principle
of a single Academy combining the functions of the ILTHE, LTSN
and HESDA, we do not believe that the business case outlined in
the TQEC's report addresses the fundamental issue of the best
use of public funding that will be necessary in a due diligence
enquiry. It is important that the issues of ensuring long term
value for money and evaluating the most cost-effective method
of establishing the Academy, in the light of what has already
been achieved by the existing organisations, are examined thoroughly
before decisions about the Academy's legal and governance structure
are finalised.
29. However it is constituted, the Academy
must be responsive to the challenges posed by a devolved education
system and the distinctive national concerns of Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland.
30. In setting professional standards for
teaching, the involvement of practitioners is crucial.
31. We advise that in identifying and setting
up Centres of Excellence the Government should address the difficulties
of getting practitioners involved and of disseminating the good
pedagogical practice developed within them. Recent experience
has shown that there can be a huge gulf between offering individual
teaching and learning support staff access to information about
good practice and their own active engagement with developmental
and innovative approaches (see paragraph 23 above).
32. Care should be taken not to limit the
interpretation of "teaching" by focusing narrowly on
lecturers. Our experience shows that learning support staff, working
in multi-professional teams, are essential to the development
of effective learning environments, of innovative approaches to
the use of technology and of curriculum design in today's changing
HE environment. These kinds of specialist staff, including librarians,
IT staff, educational developers and others make up a small but
important proportion of our membership. As dedicated and highly
qualified professionals, their contribution to the work of universities
needs to be fully recognised and rewarded.
33. We would welcome the opportunity to
provide oral evidence to the Committee from individuals drawn
from our Council and Committee members, accreditors, members who
provide support for the ILTHE within HEIs, accredited programme
leaders, convenors of Members' Forums, ILTHE staff or National
Teaching Fellowship winners as appropriate.
February 2003
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