ABSTRACT

Recent years have seen a welcome move towards professionalising the whole approach to the support for student learning within higher education in the UK. Staff taking up academic posts in more or less any university are now expected to undertake some initial educational training in their first year or two in the job. Hopefully this will help them to develop some appropriate skills and knowledge in relation to the complicated challenges that they will face in providing support for student learning within the rapidly changing world of higher education. Gone therefore are the days when it was assumed that anyone clever enough to gain a university post through their demonstrated scholarship and research would without doubt be able to pass on their wisdom to students without thinking too much about how to do it effectively. Even so, the amount of educational training provided for staff in universities is still fairly slight, compared for example to that expected of those preparing to teach in schools. Also requirements to engage in initial preparation are in most institutions still unlikely to be followed up by any definite expectation of ongoing training and development throughout the rest of an academic career. Thus most university lecturers at best have experienced a short taster course to support their approach to providing university-level education, and many appointed more than ten years or so ago won’t even have benefited from that. This marked disparity between school and higher education is hopefully slowly beginning to be diminished. Nevertheless, it will take a long time and a marked change in attitudes for university staff to be expected to be as professional in their approach to educational provision, as is expected of them in relation to their own particular area of scholarship.