Dorothy Bishop will be presenting her lecture ‘What’s wrong with our Universities, and will the Teaching Excellence Framework put it right?’ on Wednesday 1 February from 18:00 on Highfield Campus.
Click here to register your place.
Dorothy Bishop, FBA, FMedSci, FRS is a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at the University of Oxford, where she heads a programme of research into children’s communication impairments. She is a member of the executive committee of the Council for Defence of British Universities, and writes a popular blog with personal reactions to scientific and academic matters.
In 2016, the government introduced the Higher Education and Research Bill 2016-17, which is currently being debated in the House of Lords and has particular importance for universities in England.
The Bill contains a complex mix of proposals that involve structural changes in the relationship between government and universities, new criteria for what constitutes a university, and the placement of teaching and research in different Departments of State.
A major focus of the Green Paper introducing the Bill was the need for a Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) to parallel the Research Excellence Framework (REF).
The TEF does not require new legislation and, even though the Bill is facing some opposition in the Lords, the TEF is now being implemented without any parliamentary scrutiny.
In this talk Dorothy Bishop will evaluate:
- The arguments made in the Green Paper in favour of introducing a TEF
- The formal responses to TEF proposals in the Green Paper
- Specific criticism of the statistical basis of the proposed TEF
- Cost-benefit analysis of the TEF
During his series of addresses in November 2016, Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Christopher Snowden touched upon the future of Higher Education and the potential impact of TEF. This being said, we anticipate this lecture will be very popular, so please register your place as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
