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A number of recent reports, including Redefining Tertiary Education (OECD;1998), have focused attention on students as individuals with expectations that will have a growing impact on educational providers. In a context in which learning is seen as a lifelong process, and students increasingly pay providers directly, there are implications for assessment and certification, staff development, marketing and customer relations. There is growing pressure on systems and institutions to take more account of students’ prior learning in assessing their suitability for courses, and to offer certification which is internationally recognised and transferable.
At the level of day to day student life, universities and other institutions vary widely on the range and quality of the services that they provide. While there is pressure to improve services, at the same time resource constraints are putting pressure on institutions’ capacity to provide them. How can institutions respond to the growing demands made on them in this area? And in what ways are student views of their experience of higher education taken into account in planning services?
The goal of this seminar is then to examine, from various perspectives, the changing nature of student expectations of universities in the contemporary environment, and the appropriate management responses to those expectations. The seminar is part of an IMHE project which aims to provide institutions with a range of information on the effects of the emergence of “student as consumers” on programmes, teaching and learning, as well as on the management arrangements and services which support needed changes. Attention will be given to the implications of this trend for staff development, marketing, customer relations and new orientations in planning services.
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