Joining The Dots

Abstract

The emergence of the discourse around learning and teaching in higher education is one of the more remarkable phenomena of the last decade. In the UK, the creation of the national Institute for Learning and Teaching and the discipline-based Learning and Teaching Support Network, the requirement by the English Funding Council that all institutions should develop a learning and teaching strategy which attracts funding, the emphasis by the Quality Assurance Agency through its subject review process on the quality of teaching, and government policy statements are all clear evidence that there has been a major shift at a national level towards reassessing the importance of learning and teaching in universities and higher education colleges. Closely associated with this emerging field of debate and research has been the increasing recognition given to the notion of educational development.The purpose of this article is to argue that this juncture in the history of higher education creates an opportunity to reconceptualize ‘educational development’ and to propose a framework for achieving a major change in thinking about the higher education development agenda.