The Future of Tertiary Education: Curricula that benefit Society?

By Young Academy of Scotland | 3 August 2020 09:19

Debate

*Please note this event is in the past. For more information about the wider project this event on this topic, please visit our The Purpose and Future of Higher Education page.

This event will discuss how we might re-think HE and TE curricula to meet rapidly-changing societal needs. Our aim is to give practitioners a space to share ideas, concerns and aspirations about their future role and educational mission. The debate will feed into into the RSE/YAS Tertiary Education Futures project and the RSE’s Post-Covid-19 Commission.While government, funding bodies and HE managers regularly come together to debate future paths for HE in Scotland and the UK, there are fewer opportunities for practitioners to join the conversation. As a result, change tends to be led by top-down reforms and initiatives, leaving the expertise, ideas and concerns of those ‘at the coalface’ under-represented.In hosting this event, the Young Academy of Scotland seeks to provide a constructive, collaborative space for people across the sector to share ideas about their aspirations for the future of Higher Education, in response to changing national and international circumstances.

This event will include pre-recorded videos from 5 excellent speakers and a provocation from them to the participants. The event will include Q&A with the panel but also some breakout discussions around the provocations proposed.

Our panellists have prepared short introductory talks and provocations which we invite you to watch and consider before the meeting:

Khadija Mohammed (Senior Lecturer Education at the University of the West of Scotland) Decolonising The Curriculum

Provocation: ‘Racism exists on our campuses and in society. Call it what it is and reject it in all its forms – Universities stand united against this – time for real change’

Carl Gombrich (Director of Teaching and Learning at the London Interdisciplinary School) Interdisciplinary Curriculum

Provocation: ‘Universities are about learning to do work of value to others – this is the best way to change society for the better and to learn about your purpose in life’

Aishwarya Tiku (Vice-President Education of the Student Association of the University of the West of Scotland) Students supporting Curriculum Development

Provocation: ‘Students should be the active change agents providing curriculum solutions that will benefit society.’

Helena Good – (Lecturer at Edinburgh College) Creative Bravery and the Curriculum

Provocation: ‘We will not survive unless we share knowledge and work together as a community’

Sian Bayne – (Professor and Director of Education for Edinburgh Futures Institute – Edinburgh University) -Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Provocation:’Curriculum is only part of the picture: it needs to go hand-in-hand with a re-think of the structure, form and delivery mode of future higher education’