|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
Higher Education Review ProcessStriving for Quality: Learning, Teaching and ScholarshipforewordIn 1939, in an address to the Canberra University College entitled “The Place of a university in the modern community”, Sir Robert Menzies laid out seven ideals of a true university. He nominated the core features of a university as:
A lifetime later, our nation’s aspirations for its institutions of higher learning should have changed little. But to the Menzian ideals can be added perhaps, the need for universities to enrich our nation’s cultural and economic life. In the era of an Australian mass higher education system, we also need universities to enable students to acquire knowledge and skills relevant to employers as much as to society generally. Irrespective of their circumstances, Australians need to be able to both find and fulfil their own potential facilitated by universities offering teaching of the highest quality, deeply rooted in scholarship. Australian higher education enjoys a high reputation not only because of its institutions, their distribution throughout the country and the support they draw from their communities, but especially because of those who teach within them. It is in the end those who commit their lives to teaching – to imparting not so much knowledge, but the art of and thirst for learning, who make a good university great. Excellence in teaching, which really translates into an outstanding ability to transform the lives of students, should be recognised and rewarded in all kinds of ways. Neither tolerance of mediocrity nor indifference to excellence should find a home in our universities. Henry Brooks Adams observed that “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” Each day, thousands of Australian academics commit themselves to unlocking the potential of their students and in doing so have an enormous impact on the future. Quality needs to be identified, recognised and rewarded. It should be at the centre of policy formulation. In contemplating the future, and the critically important role of universities in the emergence of knowledge-based industries, ways in which teaching is delivered are changing. So too are the ways in which students learn and their reasonable expectations of the experience. The role of universities needs seriously to be examined to reflect both their needs and that of the communities which they directly serve. The amalgamation of former Colleges of Advanced Education with then universities in 1989, suddenly brought an expectation of changing roles. The ‘new’ universities have embraced research both well and enthusiastically. Standouts include those engaged in research focused on key economic and social priorities of the communities in which they are based. Often, as say in the case of Charles Sturt or James Cook Universities, these are also critical national objectives. But the question should be asked and debated as to whether every university should strive, in the quantum and type of research it undertakes, to be the same. Can we not reward and celebrate teaching and scholarship excellence with the same enthusiasm we do that of research? Can we encourage universities to specialise in that which they choose, being responsive to the needs of students as the first priority? Research informs teaching, but is it essential that the research occur in the same institution in which it is taught? If Australian universities are to define our future, it is essential we be liberal in defining the balance of the key definitional roles they undertake. Each should differentiate themselves from the others, and that difference should be the strength of a system, the bedrock of which is quality.
The Honourable Dr Brendan Nelson MP
|
|||
|
Any comments or
queries should be sent to:
highered@dest.gov.au
Department of Education, Science and Training
|
