Pressure builds on teaching standards

RISING competition for students is putting a greater focus on teaching quality.

RISING competition for students is putting a greater focus on teaching quality, with many universities looking to improve evaluation surveys and boost professional development and recognition for teaching.

Final mission-based compacts, which were belatedly published on the Innovation Department website late last month, reveal a much greater emphasis on teaching.

Australian Catholic University, for example, is providing incentives for staff to take a graduate certificate in higher education teaching and Murdoch University is providing its own formal training program.

Many also talk of embedding generic skills and curriculum breadth, as well as boosting opportunities for work-integrated learning.

The compacts also reveal more flexible learning opportunities such as blending face-to-face with online delivery, and adding opportunities for accelerated learning through trimesters, expanded summer schools and winter terms.

"It is more competitive and therefore they have to improve their teaching performance through a mix of better matching subjects to demand, and improving teaching satisfaction," Grattan higher education director Andrew Norton said.

But he said that despite the fresh attention to teaching quality, the top priority for universities across the sector remained boosting research performance, even if the research effort was being more narrowly focused.