{"id":2634,"date":"2012-11-01T14:39:17","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T14:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=2634"},"modified":"2012-11-01T14:39:17","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T14:39:17","slug":"qaa-improves-its-text-just-a-bit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2012\/11\/01\/qaa-improves-its-text-just-a-bit\/","title":{"rendered":"QAA improves its text \u2013 just a bit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this year, QAA consulted on a draft <em>Quality Code for HE <\/em>in the UK. \u00a0In\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2012\/06\/26\/qaa-and-esd-\u2013-a-serious-case-of-conceptual-clarity-disorder\/\">commenting<\/a> on this, I was rather critical, but in good company as <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2012\/07\/18\/eaucs-eloquent-response-to-the-qaa\/\">EAUC<\/a> pitched in as well. \u00a0Having \"listened\", QAA has released a revised code which is available (along with details of some of the feedback it received), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qaa.ac.uk\/Publications\/InformationAndGuidance\/Pages\/quality-code-B3.aspx\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There is, I think, some improvement and evidence of good listening by QAA \u2013 up to a point ...<\/p>\n<p><strong>1<\/strong>.\u00a0In the draft text, the five themes \"that cross subject boundaries\" were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>graduate\u00a0attributes<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>education for\u00a0sustainability<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>civic\u00a0responsibility<\/em><\/li>\n<li> <em>internationalization<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>enterprise and entrepreneurship<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are now ...<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>academic and digital literacies appropriate to the academic level of the student<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>education for sustainability<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>citizenship<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>enterprise and entrepreneurship<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>internationalisation<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>ethical behaviour<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is a less incoherent list than before, so we should be a little bit grateful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2<\/strong>.\u00a0The draft text said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Higher\u00a0education providers engage with a number of themes that cross subject and\u00a0discipline boundaries and inform the design of learning and\u00a0teaching\u00a0activities and the currency of the curriculum.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The wording now is:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>... higher education providers consider the way their strategic approach reflects themes that cross subject boundaries.\u00a0 These themes reflect topics which may be considered to have a broad relevance to the purposes of higher education and its wider context in society.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>... which seems better as it stresses the relevance of the themes to \"<em><span style=\"font-style: italic\">the purposes of higher education and its wider context in society<\/span><\/em>\".<\/p>\n<p>For me, however, it is still a problem that it's education for sustainability [EfS] that is identified as the theme, rather than <em>sustainability<\/em>, as it is the latter which has the social relevance, whereas EfS \/ ESD is a means of student engagement <em>with<\/em> the theme.<\/p>\n<p>And, anyway, they are still just \"themes\" which institutions \"may\" (i.e. need not) include. \u00a0I closed my first commentary in this way:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\"The important achievement\u00a0would be an acknowledgement by QAA that\u00a0the world now\u00a0faces a range of severe\u00a0challenges which threaten the quality of lives, the resilience of economies,\u00a0the integrity of the biosphere, etc.,\u00a0and\u00a0that\u00a0UK HE has both\u00a0responsibilities and agency here. \u00a0\u00a0<em>Section C <\/em>of\u00a0the Code, which sets out\u00a0<em>Indicators of\u00a0Sound Practice<\/em>, seems a likely\u00a0place [to make this point].\u00a0\u00a0Here,\u00a0Indicator\u00a01 says: \"<em>Higher\u00a0education providers publish information that describes their mission,\u00a0values and overall strategy\". <\/em>But\u00a0Section C is not currently subject to consultation.\u00a0\u00a0A pity.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>No change here. \u00a0Only one cheer, then, I'm afraid, for the QAA.<\/p>\n<p>Given that \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hefce.ac.uk\/whatwedo\/lgm\/lgmprojects\/sustainabledevelopment\/leadingcurriculumchangeforsustainabilitystrategicapproachestoqualityenhancement\/\">HEFCE<\/a> recently spent over \u00a3200k exploring quality assurance \/ enhancement and ESD through an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hefce.ac.uk\/whatwedo\/lgm\/lgmprojects\/sustainabledevelopment\/\">LGM project<\/a>, where the chief executive of the QAA chaired the project's uber impressive Expert Advisory <a href=\"http:\/\/insight.glos.ac.uk\/sustainability\/Education\/hefcelgmquality\/Pages\/ExpertAdvisoryBoard.aspx\">Board<\/a>, there seems to have been little influence on the QAA itself. \u00a0Chagrin <em>and<\/em> pity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this year, QAA consulted on a draft Quality Code for HE in the UK. \u00a0In\u00a0commenting on this, I was rather critical, but in good company as EAUC pitched in as well. \u00a0Having \"listened\", QAA has released a revised code...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}