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Contribution published!

My contribution to the debate has now been published on the DIUS website. 

Update 27 April

Well, a fascinating set of thoughtful responses! They reflect a number of themes that have emerged from my discussions elsewhere:

• There's a view that students have become more instrumental and demanding, wanting more rather than less individual support. Partly this is to do with there being more students and more diversity of background, age and achievement; partly it may be to do with rising student contributions to the cost of education.
• Some people think this means adjusting teaching and the curriculum to meet 'customer' needs. But another view holds that this would not be fair to students. Creating the best learning environment does not imply simply meeting student expectations, according to this view. No: it means setting and managing expectations and standards -- helping students to adjust to higher education rather than the other way round; making it their responsibility. And if students expect more individual attention in a mass higher education system, maybe they will have to pay more for it.
• There's a view that developing academic and support staff skills to meet the new expectations will be a major challenge. Elsewhere I have heard it mentioned that we have contracts and performance management systems that haven't caught up with the needs of students in the 21st century university. 
• Some people are worried (rightly, I think) that changes in student expectations and universities' responses to these expectations may lead to a bigger disconnect between research and teaching.
• RHC - yes, David Melville's group and JISC have been asked to contribute.

Some more questions:

• What things are you (or your institution) doing to accommodate changing student expectations?
• What do you think we need to do in the UK to maintain and improve the quality of the student experience?
• Should colleges and universities 'contract' with students to offer minimum numbers of teaching hours, etc? (one example of this - Lancaster - is here)

All on-topic comments welcome. And I'll try to reply to them sooner.

First questions

Here is my first series of questions. They're about changes in student expectations of higher education.

Please leave a comment on as many, or as few, as you like. Tell me in your comment if you are a student, a lecturer, a parent or a member of the public. Comments may be moderated.

• How do you think students' expectations of their educational experience have changed over the last 5-10 years?
• What changes in students' expectations do you think are likely to happen in the next 5-10 years?
• What would you say are the top three challenges in meeting these changes?
  

If you want to know what some others have said about these topics, try this, this, this, this and this.

The Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, Rt Hon John Denham MP, has asked me to look at teaching and the student experience.

It’s a great privilege to have been invited to be one of the contributors to this debate, and I hope you'll join me by adding your views on this site.

Higher Education in the United Kingdom is renowned worldwide for its excellent teaching and research. Teaching and the student experience is an issue of considerable strategic importance to government. How can we maintain and improve its quality – in the face of global competition?

The student experience has become a more prominent part of policy making with the introduction of the National Student Survey and the Student Forums. Universities and colleges recognise that responding to information from students is a very important aspect of enhancing quality and ensuring the best learning outcomes. The organisation that I lead, the Higher Education Academy, has a bold vision: for UK higher education to provide students with the highest quality learning experience in the world.

I've been asked to:

• Offer a perspective on how higher education institutions and academics, in the UK and internationally, are currently responding to the evolving student expectations of their educational experience
  
• Assess what are the main challenges for the future in maintaining and improving the quality of that experience
  
• Examine how these challenges might be met

Mr Denham has asked me to give him my initial thoughts by the end of May, and to deliver my 'considered views' by September. As I said, this isn't a formal review - it's more like a contribution to the debate on future policy.

I’m consulting widely, and this blog will provide updates on progress and offer everyone an opportunity to comment on the issues. I'll be posting a series of questions to guide the discussion every few days.