Welcome to a seminar with Professor Paul Ashwin, from University of Lancaster on the theme: Transforming University Education – How might the educational purposes of higher education shape institutional and national policies?

In his work “Transforming University Education: A Manifesto” (2020, Bloomsbury) Professor Paul Ashwin argued that the educational purposes of university degrees need to shape how the quality of higher education is understood in institutional and national higher education policies. In this seminar, he will reflect on whether this is a realistic aim and consider what strategies might help to achieve it.

Paul Ashwin is a Professor of Higher Education and Deputy Director of the Centre for Global Higher Education. His research is focused on the educational role of higher education. He is interested in how curricula in higher education can be designed in ways that help to transform students' understanding of themselves and the world. He is also interested in the role of policies in shaping the education offered by higher education institutions. The kinds of questions that he explores in this research include: What counts as high quality teaching and learning in higher education? How is this positioned in policies and practices? How do we research and theorise these competing notions of quality? How do we enhance the quality of education in ways that also support greater societal equality?

Welcome!