Learning and teaching The nature of learning, and the teaching that supports it, is under scrutiny. At present we rely on some fairly crude quantitative data, which tell us how many people, have emerged from the system and at what rate of progression. The recent symposium on the CEQ seems to have done little to improve understanding of it. To the extent that the research base for the CEQ shows a real tie back to teaching quality rather than just reflecting student attitudes, that research is not well appreciated. Now that the government appears to be relying on the CEQ more and more in central assessments of universities' quality and performance, there is clear need to research its capacity to be used in that way, and to re-examine the various comparisons made by means of it.
More work is arguable needed at the front end also.
Just as some claim that poor CEQ results are merely the result of attracting and training more critical students, so others claim that universities attracting students with a high TER do not have as hard a row to hoe as those educating the next rung. Clearly, more needs to be understood about the 'value-added' by university education. Perhaps the long mooted but as yet unseen graduate tests are intended to throw light on these murky areas. Another important issue is the relationship of good research to good university teaching. The impact of funding systems There has been a range of research into funding systems for higher education, with a focus on the options for more market based systems.