Some Issues Impacting on University Teaching and Learning

In the past few years, higher education in many countries throughout the world has undergone dramatic and far-reaching change. Factors such as:

institutional mergers and amalgamations;

huge increases in enrolments and in class sizes;

reduced funding per student;

greater concentration on linkages with the world of work and responsiveness to the demands of industry and the professions;

dissatisfaction with progression rates, especially in higher degree studies;

more diverse and demanding student groups; and

increased pressures for institutions to submit themselves to public scrutiny and to account more carefully for the quality of their activities (and of their graduates);