After over two years gestation, the Higher Education Academy has finally produced its “Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education”.    So, was it worth the wait?

What hits you first is the amazing brevity of the document;    it can’t represent more than a word a day in its production.    It looks, and feels, almost empty.    As THES puts it, “anyone hoping for a description of what good teaching entails will be disappointed”.    They might even be tempted to conclude that the whole thing was a “waste of time and money”.

But stay with it.    Those few words are carefully chosen.    No, they don’t offer a detailed, prescriptive formula that academics should follow.    They set out principles that need to be interpreted and even adapted to particular circumstances.    As Paul Ramsden, HEA chief executive, put it, the authors “walked a tightrope” between vagueness and excessive regulation.

Did they manage it?    I think they did.    It’s a valuable contribution that helps shape our understanding of quality in teaching and learner support.

If I have a quibble, it is that the standards are a little too much of their time, too focused on political correctness than teasing out the timeless values that underlie teaching.    I could have lived without exhortations to “use appropriate learning technologies”, “promote equal opportunities”, “develop learning communities” and the like.    It’s not that they aren’t worthy enough, even important.    It’s just that, in a paper which tries so hard to distil the ultimate essence of quality in teaching, they look a little out of place.    But that’s a small carp on what is otherwise an excellent document.

Sources: HEA Press Release
HEA Standards
THES 24 February, pp2, 12: comments