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<h1>Why is no one defending teaching at our universities?</h1>
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Your undergraduate experience depends upon the quality of teaching staff - yet
universities continue to put research first, argues Gervas Huxley.
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<span class="caption">University teaching: it’s time for both Parliament and the public to address the quality of teaching at our universities. </span> <span class="credit">Photo: OJO Images Ltd / Alamy</span></div>
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By <span rel="author">Gervas Huxley</span></p>
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<p class="publishedDate">7:00AM GMT 12 Dec 2012</p>
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Much as we wish it weren’t so, Christmas shopping really boils down to one
simple rule – the more you spend, the more you end up with under your tree.
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The same does not seem to apply to our university system. Students are
typically taught in tutorials of 15 or more students these days, whilst
their parents (if they went to university) studied in classes less than half
this size and of course paid no fee.
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How can this be fair? For all the talk about market forces and value for money
supposedly reshaping our university system, it doesn’t take an Economics
lecturer to see there’s something amiss.
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And yet when do we ever hear concerns about the quality of teaching? Rarely,
if at all.
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As it happens I am an Economics lecturer. More specifically, I am a Teaching
Fellow at the University of Bristol. This means I am paid to teach, and only
to teach.
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I mention this because the status of my profession gives a good insight into
the esteem in which teaching is held in academia. As the balance between
teaching and research has shifted decisively in favour of research, not just
in this country but around the world, the emphasis on research in Russell
Group universities means that the role of teaching is increasingly
neglected.
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And it's not just the universities – almost any academic you’ll find
speaking about our university system in the Houses of Parliament or in a
national newspaper will be there because of their research.
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I’ve been asked to give evidence at the House of Lords this week on the state
of higher education teaching – and invited to write this blog – because of<strong>
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wjIcb-TLhA">a
lecture voted for by my students</a> </strong>which appeared online last year.
But this is highly unusual.
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This lack of emphasis on teaching is one of the major problems facing our
higher education system. The quality of education received by undergraduates
relies increasingly on what teaching staff like myself have to offer, but
far too little is known about our role.
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Nowhere is this clearer than in the near-total absence of discussion about
class size. If increasing class size was the inevitable consequence of
falling funding per student for almost two decades from 1979 until 1998 –
when students began to pay fees of £1,000 – shouldn’t students be seeing a
benefit from the successive increases in the fee since 1998?
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So far there’s been no sign of this happening. It’s time for both Parliament
and the public to address the quality of teaching at our universities.
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And it’s time that those of us in academia whose main concern is teaching
began contributing to this debate.
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<br><strong>Gervas Huxley is</strong> <strong>a Teaching Fellow at the University of Bristol and
consults on Higher Education policy. </strong><br clear="all"><br><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/9737565/Why-is-no-one-defending-teaching-at-our-universities.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/9737565/Why-is-no-one-defending-teaching-at-our-universities.html</a><br>
<br><a href="http://youtu.be/0wjIcb-TLhA">http://youtu.be/0wjIcb-TLhA</a><br><br>-- <br><div>carlos palombini<br></div><a href="http://www.researcherid.com/rid/F-7345-2011" target="_blank">www.researcherid.com/rid/F-7345-2011</a><br>
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