This document summarizes the key challenges facing higher education institutions and their workforces. It notes that digital technologies are transforming learning, assessment needs reform, and infrastructure is outdated. Student and employer expectations are also rising. The workforce has become more differentiated and sessional staff are marginalized. New learner-centric models and specialized roles will be needed. Professionalizing teaching through recognition frameworks for academic professionals and para-professionals will be important to maintain quality in this changing environment. Stakeholder engagement and addressing critics will be needed to advance these ideas.

1. Some observations on the
macro-environment for teaching
and learning in higher education
and the higher education
workforce
Professor Richard James
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic)
Director, Melbourne Centre for the Study of
Higher Education

2. A digital technology revolution now truly with us.
The emergence of learning analytics for new data on teaching and learning.
Cost-benefit questions being raised about ‘long haul’ studies, the potential for
more ‘fragmented’ forms of participation and credential acquisition.
… and graduate employability truly under the spotlight.
The largely untransformed character of assessment of learning, yet
assessment must be at the centre of new forms of higher education.
Dated campus infrastructure unsuited to new forms of participation (and
often oscillating between crowded and empty!)
The internationalisation imperative.
etc, ect,etc.
Crystal ball gazing: The changing character of higher
education and the need for sleeping giants to awake

3. 1. We are moving towards a vastly different higher education sector,
challenging old assumptions about the nature of ‘the academy’.
2. HE providers will become more diverse than ever before in their
business models, design of educational programs and deployment of
staff. More students will study in institutions in which research is not core
business.
3. Students will be more diverse in their preparedness, abilities and
interests.
4. Student expectations will intensify as they contribute a growing
proportion of the cost of their education.
5. An intense national focus on quality and standards is inevitable.
The case for a new conception of professionalism

4. 6. There are genuine risks to quality and standards if the HE
workforce is ‘under-professionalised’ for the professional practice of
teaching.
7. Yet the next generation of higher education teachers are not being
systematically nurtured.
8. A largely unplanned differentiation of academic work has been
occurring, with some undesirable outcomes.
9. A balkanised workforce has been created, with R&T academics
and a vast array of sessional staff. Sessional staff are often
marginalised and lack pathways towards professional identity.
Ironically, higher education has a ‘light touch’ approach
towards formal ‘professionalisation’ of teaching

5. 10. New learner-centric models of higher education will need to be
designed and built.
11. Increasingly, teaching will be a team-based activity, dependent on
the effective coordination and integration of skills and contributions.
12. Workforce roles will become more specialised, fewer people will
work across the traditional spectrum of research, teaching,
engagement and administration.
13. Thus, new forms of academic identity will need to be created.
14. To do so, the discourse on what constitutes ‘scholarship’ in higher
education needs new life.
After this somewhat bleak assessment, how can we invent
a better future?

6. 15. How the ‘sub-professions’ within a differentiating academy might
be imagined and fostered is critical. A differentiated workforce model
of ‘academic professionals’ and ‘para-professionals’ is likely to be the
future for higher education.
16. Nurturing of the next generation of academics who will lead and
coordinate learning and teaching is vitally important.
17. Educating, supporting and recognising the vast array of ‘para-
professionals’ is equally important.
Role differentiation and Professional Recognition are
key to the future quality of higher education

7. Creating an integrated national framework …

8. Creating an integrated national framework …

9. Actively engage with key stakeholders and build support and
collaborative action (more than simply disseminate a report!)
Make explicit links to the proposed new standards framework and
regulation.
Put enough flesh on bones of the idea of a new ‘Academy’ for
professional recognition to avoid it being shot down at the outset.
Ensure that all elements are consistent in some way with the needs
of a differentiated teaching workforce
These ideas will be contentious and unpalatable for
some. We will not get full traction unless we …

10. 3.2 Staffing
1. The staffing complement for each course of study is sufficient to meet the educational,
academic support and administrative needs of student cohorts undertaking the course.
2. The academic staffing profile for each course of study provides the level and extent of
academic oversight and teaching capacity needed to lead students in intellectual inquiry suited
to the nature and level of expected learning outcomes.
3. Staff with responsibilities for academic oversight and those with teaching and supervisory
roles in courses or units of study are equipped for their roles, including having:
a. knowledge of contemporary developments in the discipline or field, which is informed by
continuing scholarship or research or advances in practice
b. skills in contemporary teaching, learning and assessment principles relevant to the
discipline, their role, modes of delivery and the needs of particular student cohorts, and
c. a qualification in a relevant discipline at least one level higher than is awarded for the course
of study, or equivalent relevant academic or professional or practice based experience and
expertise, except for staff supervising doctoral degrees having a doctoral degree or equivalent
research experience.
4. Teachers who teach specialised components of a course of study, such as experienced
practitioners and teachers undergoing training, who may not fully meet the standard for
knowledge, skills and qualification or experience required for teaching or supervision (3.2.3)
have their teaching guided and overseen by staff who meet the standard.

11. © Copyright The University of Melbourne 2011