The pedagogical skills and qualifications of the academic staff tend to rise as a hot topic every now and then among the students – and mostly because the importance of those seems to be undervalued at the university. Even if having a pedagogical qualification doesn’t automatically ensure good pedagogical skills, it has risen astonishment among students that in order to teach at the highest level of education, one doesn’t need to have a pedagogical qualification. However, it is highly recommended for the academic staff to study at least 10 ECTS of pedagogical studies (more info of the studies in university pedagogy at the University of Tampere), and the strategy of the University of Tampere for 2010 – 2015 highlighted the quality of education and the aim of becoming an even better environment for studying, teaching and research. This goal has been expressed as follows: “Teaching quality at the university will be ensured by increasing training in university pedagogy. Pedagogical merits will play a systematic and increasing role in the recruitment, salary structures and career promotion of teachers.” The situation is similar elsewhere. Dr. Kelly Coate, who works as Director at the King’s Learning Institute, visited University of Tampere at the end of November and told about the pedagogical qualifications of academic staff in UK.
Pedagogical qualifications of academic staff in UK
King’s Learning Institute, which is part of King’s College London, offers their own Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAPs) for their staff. According to Coate, it has become quite common to do PGCAP while being on a probationary period as an academic. PGCAP is a two-year program of 60 credits, which in European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System is 30 ECTS (more info of PGCAPs and other programmes of KLI). First year of the PGCAP consists of a core module called Enhancing academic practice. It covers the basics, like large group teaching, small group teaching, and getting feedback. When that module is finished, students get to do two shorter elective modules, of which topics vary from curriculum design to assessment and feedback. After finishing three modules student gets their Postgraduate Certificate, which in the eyes of the UK government makes them qualified to teach. In UK there is also national organisation called The Higher Education Academy (HEA). “The fellowship of the Higher Education Academy has been attended to be professional standing as a teacher in higher education, and over time that has become recognised as a qualification,” Coate tells and continues, “Nowadays the Higher Education Academy puts centres like King’s Learning Institute to award people fellowships on behalf of the HEA and sort of monitor the centres, which need to get re-accredited every now and then.” This gives the centres like KLI the possibility to take applications from their staff and convince the HEA panel who then confirms the HEA Fellowships.
While being quite common to do PGCAP or get the HEA Fellowship, it isn’t compulsory to have a pedagogical qualification in order to teach at the university in UK. However, according to Coate, there’s a lot of pressure now to get the qualification, since the UK government publishes statistics on the percentage of academic staff who are qualified to teach. Qualification is measured by having a PGCAP or HEA Fellowship, and lot of people have both, Coate explains. “At King’s College about 35 percent of the staff are qualified to teach, but there are now universities in the UK that are trying to get a 100 percent. The government publishes the league tables and everybody wants to be at the top of it, so the pressure is on,” Coate states. The pressure comes from both the government and the students. Seeing both sides, Coate describes the contradiction between teaching and research: Students would like their lecturers be trained to teach, whereas at the universities, being very research-oriented institutions, the PhD qualification comes first and foremost. “There’s going to be a meeting in the middle,” Coate believes.
The future of pedagogical education in universities
According to Coate, the generic PGCAPs offered for everyone are often seen as distraction from research. That’s the reason KLI is building capacity so that every faculty could have their own version of PGCAP. “Let’s face it, teaching is not really rocket science,” Coate laughs and continues, “You still have to read, think and reflect, but people don’t need experts always be there to facilitate. Because actually they are really capable of doing it at their own faculty. They could bring much more of this discussion about how you can make your research and your teaching much more synergistic in your context, because they know the context. They can’t really do that when they come to us, sitting in a room full of philosophers and physicists. That’s the problem with generic PGCAPs.” She continues explaining, “Even if people enjoy the cross-disciplinary conversations to a point, they are saying ‘But I want this to make sense in my own context’.”
Coate also points out that experienced academics should be used as experts, “Professor of twenty years, who’s been teaching without pedagogical qualification, is not going to want to go sit in a room with young academics. But he could be brought in as an expert to work with some of the newest staff. Teaching and learning, so everybody wins.” – “What you could do is to design it so that people did have to come together with other disciplinaries, but most of the real work takes place in the faculties. I think days are numbered for generic, broad academic practice programmes,” Coate concludes.
Kelly Coate works as a Director (Accredited Programmes) at the King’s Learning Institute (KLI), King’s College London. Before joining KLI she was a lecturer in Higher Education at the National University of Ireland, Galway. While in Galway for 6 years she coordinated the PG Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and the PG Diploma/MA in Academic Practice.
Written by Telma Rivinoja