ABSTRACT
You cannot be wise without some basis of knowledge; but you may easily acquire knowledge and remain bare of wisdom.
(A.N.Whitehead)
HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHING IN ITS CONTEXT
Today’s lecturers work in a climate of expanding government intervention. They are told that higher education has obstinately refused to accept the need to respond to the changing economic and social conditions of the second half of the twentieth century. They are assailed with the accusation that higher education is a drain on scarce national resources; simultaneously, they are informed that it holds the key to improved economic performance. Requirements to cut public expenditure have led to less money in the system and to demands to use what there is more efficiently. Growing numbers of students and moves towards more open access have meant that the available resources have to be spread more thinly. At the same time, there has been assiduous pressure on institutions of higher education to give a formal and public account of themselves for funding purposes, and to carry out more visible types of evaluation, especially of research activity. The use of overt measures of performance, including numerical indicators of research output and the appraisal of academic staff, has become part of higher education policy.
