The HEAQAA's expert team is busy reacting to comments received on its draft materials. Tensions abound, I hear, especially about (1) continuing uncertainty as to who all this is for, and (2) a persistence of the idea that it's ESD that's important, rather than a change to degree studies to focus on sustainability. In other words, is what is produced to be about [i] promoting ESD to academics – something that they know nothing (and care less) about, or [ii] helping academics build on what they already do to help students by addressing sustainability – something that they might just be interested in?
Personally, I think it ought to be setting out to engage all academics, 'from Fine Art to Physics', as it were, to help them change (that is to say, enhance) what they do, even if only at the margins. I can't see how you do that by using phrases such as "the context of ESD", "well suited to ESD", "those new to ESD", "recommended for ESD", etc., all of which suggest that there is this "other" out there that you (as a Fine Art or Physics academic) have to become expert in.
There isn't. You don't. You can't. You won't.
Then there is the question of style. As this is being written for some of the smartest people in the country, and as sustainable development is a highly integrated issue, it follows that what is produced needs to have what Paul Hart termed "requisite complexity" if it is to serve its purposes. Doing so would also take its audience seriously. Doing neither of these two things is pointless, and rather stupid.
Sad then, that an edict has gone out from Caesar (aka the QAA) that the guidance has to be written in the style of national guidance rather than in 'an academic way', and has to be as clear, concise and succinct as possible – rather than 'engaging in debate and discourse'. In other words, just like one of their normal missives on Quality.
And we all know what academics do with those.
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