Bin the spin

Published on 13/10/2012 00:00

If YOUR readers do not understand why some academic teachers have concerns about Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA), they can do no better than to read Dr Bill Harvey’s response to Dr Bruce Peter (Letters, 11 October).

If a student had given me this letter as an assignment defending the validity of TQA, I would have put a red line through it and asked the student to see me urgently, as s/he was clearly trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

Far from answering the fundamental concerns raised by Dr Peter, Dr Harvey resorts to the parrot-vocabulary of the managerial elite, which is obviously fashionable within QAA circles – “enhancing”, “recognising”, “celebrating”, “vibrant”, “diversity”, “showcase”, “excellent”, with the inevitable “conference” somewhere in the mix.

Such vocabulary is used by politicians and cultural apologists among others. I have heard the Notting Hill Carnival described in much the same terms.

The defence of TQA remains to be made. Dr Harvey’s letter is certainly not such, nor is it a “showcase” for TQA or QAA Scotland. Some “enhancement” is urgently required in his office, most obviously in the “sector” responsible for “press releases” and similar “communications”.

Nor does Dr Harvey’s letter do much for what, with the benefit of 40 years of study and teaching, I have always regarded as the precise disciplines of teaching and learning within higher education.

(Professor Emeritus) Donald E Meek

Cricket Place

Falkirk