Week 10: Academic development and building academic careers

This topic refers to the need for academic and professional development of staff in higher education organisations. This issue in higher education needs to be viewed in connection with a country’s wider key policy considerations and implications on higher education institutions such as economic relevance, quality assurance and cost-effectiveness (MOE, 2012a). Academic development is a strategy therefore for the raison d’etre of higher education and must be viewed with this in mind.

Singapore’s Ministry of Education convened a Committee on University Education Pathways beyond 2015 (CUEP) to recommend strategies to revamp the university sector in order to provide more opportunities and pathways for its citizens to obtain a tertiary education (MOE, 2012a). Recommendation 5 of the committee’s findings includes conducting an in-depth study of the private education sector (MOE, 2012b). This was found to be one of the priorities because:

The Committee recognises that private education institutions (PEI) play a role in complementing the public university sector, by injecting greater course diversity and supporting workforce development. However, the PEI landscape in Singapore is large and of uneven quality. We are concerned that this uncertain quality of education could compromise students’ learning outcomes, and lead to less than ideal outcomes and returns on investment for students. (pp.8-9).

The committee recognised that there was insufficient data to fully evaluate the parameters of higher education, and therefore called for an in-depth study of the private education sector that is hoped would lead to an “[improved] quality of the sector as a whole and building up [of] public confidence in the value of its offerings” (MOE, 2012b, p.9).

In a fast paced, economically driven country, institutions of higher education have little choice but to develop their academic staff and programmes in order to remain viable and attractive to students. Hénard and Roseveare (2012) suggest that professional development could include a hybrid of programmes all aiming to “improve the quality of the teaching process, of the programme content, as well as the learning conditions of students” (Hénard & Roseveare, 2012, p.7). Levin et al., (1987) posited that the incentive for any organisation to be ‘investing’ in development would be a sound awareness of the appropriate returns of that investment. Similarly, institutes of higher education need to ‘invest’ in academic development of their staff because the potential returns of their investment have far-reaching benefits. These potential returns could include benefits to the major stakeholders in higher education (students, teachers, organisations and nations’ economies). 

Moses (1985) proposed that the purpose for staff development was to cause change. But to achieve this change, Moses (1985) continues, a few conditions need to be considered at an organisational and personal level:

At the institutional level: 1. An evaluation programme of subjects and teaching must be made available which is accepted by academics as valid, reliable and useful. 2. Professional development activities must be available which complement the teaching aspects evaluated. 3. Official encouragement, support or sponsorship for development must be given, either by heads of departments or by the Executive, the "administration". 4. The reward system must reflect, and be perceived to reflect, the importance of pursuit of excellence in teaching and research

On the personal level: 5. Staff must perceive a need for development. 6. Staff must accept organised staff development as one way to meet that need. 7. Staff must perceive development activities as cost effective (p. 91)

Reflection

The need for academic development is an on-going one if the organisation is to be viable, and possess vitality and relevance for students and society in general. Organisations with little or no professional development will sink into stagnation as the organisation fails to respond to the needs and demands of an ever discerning end-user (students). Very often, staff in organisations are wary of development programmes because, among other factors, they do not recognise the need and importance for on-going development.

For further consideration

Realising the  consequences of good teaching methodologies and academic programmes that attract and/or repel the client, how much resources are spent on staff development and academic development? This might be indicative of the priority (or lack of it) that is given to the development of teaching-learning programmes in institutions of higher education.

References

Hénard, F. & Roseveare, D. (2012). Fostering quality teaching in higher education: Policies and practices (An IMHE guide for higher education). OECD. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/edu/imhe/QT%20policies%20and%20practices.pdf

Levin, R.C., Klevorick, A.K., Nelson, R.R., Winter, S.G., Gilbert, R.,& Griliches, Z. (1987). Appropriating the returns from industrial research and development. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 3, 783-831.

Moses, I. (1985). Academic Development Units and the Improvement of Teaching. Higher Education, 14(1) 77-100.

Singapore Ministry of Education. (2012a). Singapore’s university landscape. Retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.sg/feedback/2011/committee-on-university-education-pathways-beyond-2015/singapore-university-landscape/

Singapore Ministry of Education. (2012b). Report of the committee on university education pathways beyond 2015 (CUEP): Greater diversity, more opportunities (Final Report). Retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/files/2012/08/cuep-report-greater-diversity-more-opportunities.pdf