Suggested cuts in the Public Sector

Well, as everyone will know by now, An Bord Snip Nua, has published its report indicating a range of suggestions to cut government spending. For the higher education sector the details are spelled out in pages 63-71 of Volume II. Key points include mergers, abolition of PRTLI V and job cuts. Volume 1 and Volume II are downloadable for all to see.

CELT in Paris

The Times Higher has been reporting on the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education which took place last week in Paris. One of the many interns supporting this conference was our very own PhD student, Aurélie Boulos.

Her infrequent missives from inside UNESCO headquarters gave us a small insight into the mammoth task of organizing a global conference at such a high level. We will look forward to hearing more about it when she returns to Galway. In the meantime, we feel comforted by the fact that she is now well-placed to help us organize next year's Galway Symposium on creativity in higher education (also the topic of her PhD thesis).

Keynote lectures

Thanks to Gráinne's hard work behind the scenes, the recordings of the keynote presentations at the Symposium are now becoming available online. You can access each of them at our public webcast page. 

Congratulations!

Just a little interruption to the Symposium reporting to highlight some great achievements. Today was the conferring of the MA in Teaching & Learning in HE/ Academic Practice and we were delighted to celebrate the event with Dr. Dagmar Stengel, Dr. Frances McCormack and Dr. Tim Higgins all of whom completed a series of taught modules and undertook significant research projects on topics such as: the Bologna Process; Academic Identity/Practice; Assessment.

Well done to all three of you, particularly given that all of you are active in research and teaching in your original academic disciplines - no mean feat.

emerging issues #1....

Some of the topics that came up at the discussions/workshop sessions included a renewed interest in what sort of degree structures would be most appropriate for the new era of mass participation in higher education and the needs for graduates to be flexible in their employment prospects, but also to have acquired some greater awareness of cultural and civic values. Suggestions include a rationalisation of the plethora of programmes and a focus perhaps on a modern equivalent of a 'liberal arts' curriculum (remembering that such includes science as well as humanities and social sciences) or degrees based on themes. Of course, these are not new ideas and we have commented many times about these in this blog, drawing attention to Harvard's revised themes and the similar approach in Melbourne. Nonetheless, in the hectic and relentless pace of semesters and academic years it is not often that we find the time to gather our thoughts collectively on these broader areas, so the discussions were very worthwhile.

The thorny topic of commodification and whether it is legitimate to talk of 'customers' of higher education and if it is, then who are the customers, also arose. Some concerns that modularisation might even encourage students to think in these terms and result in pressures to deliver products rather than transformative experiences and individual personal growth. Some suggestions were that we could embrace the ECTS and Bologna principles to turn the situation on its head by communicating more effectively to students that the implication is that a full-time student must commit to spend an appropriate 'full-time' on study and learning, guided and aided by lectures, tutorials, materials and resources but that they must play the active role in the learning process. The fragmentation of quasi-standalone modules, often with one lecturer per module and the lack of opportunity to engage with curricular development at a higher, more integrated manner were seen as barriers to sending out consistent messages and indeed providing gaps through which students might slip in terms of monitoring their own performance. 

We saw some excellent examples of efforts to support students in their learning through peer-assisted learning and were delighted to have students from the pilot project on this theme in AIT and GMIT deliver a workshop at the symposium. Of course, there are many variants of such schemes in place around the world, many of which are seen to be effective, but resourcing, planning and organisation demand not just time but institutional commitment and there is always the danger that such endeavours are viewed as another additional initiative on top of everything else, rather than the glue that links the various components together. The related concept of 'learning communities' is something that we will return to and in which I have some personal interest.

Other themes emerged in the various workshop and discussion strands, and more of them in our next few posts. We'll also let you know as soon as the keynotes are available online and we'll pop copies into the National Digital Learning Repository.

Winding down

Well, we just ended a great Symposium. Lots of buzz and conversation around the place and some good keynote presentations. We'd like to thank all of you who participated and particularly to those who have become regular attendees! Thank you all so much for your support and many apologies that we were unable to blog live from the event. We were so busy behind the scenes, but thanks to Sharon for heroically trying to at least send out some tweets!

Reports of the various sessions and themes covered will appear here in due course, along with links to keynote recordings, but in the meantime, it's time for the organisers to lake a little rest for a few days at any rate.

Fáilte!

Welcome to the 7th Galway Symposium on Higher Education!! There's been a lull in the city since the Volvo Ocean Racers left us at the weekend, but now the next big event is about to start - "Design for Learning - Curriculum & Assessment in Higher Education". 

Taking place in Aras Moyolla on the north part of the main university campus, it promises to be an opportunity for debate, intellectual stimulation and jolly banter around the key themes of learning outcomes, Bologna and assessment.  

We will also be celebrating the President's Awards for Teaching Excellence at the Symposium Dinner, inviting those who have been nominated to join us at the event.

All change in England

In Gordon Brown's cabinet reshuffle today, he abolished the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and passed over responsibility for all of higher and further education to Lord Mandelson's newdepartment for Business. This has led to a quite negative response from some academic quarters since it further embeds universities as essentially business training organisations and cuts them off from wider education and culture. You can read the Guardian's report here and the official government statement here.