The Case for a Centre for Learning and Teaching

The impact of the Bradley Review, and the Governments response to it, are still continuing to transform the Australian Higher Education sector just as radically as any of the reforms that preceded it in earlier decades. When considered from a market perspective, these reforms have ensured that the sector must increasingly both understand and be able to respond rapidly, and in agile manner, to changing and challenging market conditions particularly where the recruitment and retention of students is concerned. In addition to these changing market dynamics is the evolving and increasing requirement to be able to demonstrably quality assure many aspects of the learning experience, but most particularly those elements that relate to the expression of the curriculum, particularly in terms of learning outcomes and the related assessment and moderation regimes.
Within this context it is increasingly important that individual Higher Education Providers are clear as to understand how the component parts of their business, be they research, learning and teaching or business activity, contribute to their overall income profile and support these diverse aspects of the business accordingly. In the case of learning and teaching it is thus important that they ensure that they are providing the facilities, resources and experiences to teaching practitioners, which will enable them to provide the types of learning and teaching experience that 21st Century students are increasingly demanding. Furthermore, where there is a desire to shift the balance of the business profile e.g. towards a greater proportion of income being generated via research activity, it is important to ensure that this is achieved over time and in a controlled and deliberate manner and that the core income generating components of the business, which for very many Higher Education Providers will be learning and teaching, continues to be supported to ensure its ongoing viability.
Many current Higher Education Providers are operating within an income profile that would see the largest significant portion of their annual income generated from learning and teaching activity, most of which will be earned in the provision of education at the undergraduate level. Within this context, it is thus vitally important to ensure that the core revenue generating business activity of the organisation is appropriately envisioned, led and supported at the strategic, operational and tactical levels. In addition, and in a market where for many universities student recruitment at the higher post secondary outcome levels (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, Universities Admission Index, National Tertiary Entrance Rank or Overall Position) is becoming harder, it is often the case that ‘university readiness’, that is the preparedness of newly recruited students to be able to access and engage with their learning experience, is tapering; leading to an increasing requirement to focus attention and resources upon undergraduate retention (and completion) as another critical learning and teaching activity.