Arena Symposium: Dearing and Geography

ABSTRACT

From time to time national governments undertake wide-ranging reviews of higher education which can have substantial consequences for institutions, disciplines and students. The Dearing Report is the culmination of a major review of this kind recently completed in the UK. It seeks to chart the course for the nation's higher education system across the next 20 years. Interestingly, many of the ideas it develops will be familiar to an international audience and are based in part on experience in other countries. The Report contains over 90 recommendations on issues as diverse as student funding, curriculum design, teaching and learning methods, academic standards and links between academia and the world of work. The Dearing Report is an educational landmark event and for this reason JGHE has brought together a collection of papers whose overall aims are to outline and debate Dearing's main recommendations, to assess their possible implications for geography and to consider how geographers may wish to respond to the Dearing agenda. Four of these papers were first presented at a conference on 'Dearing and Geography' held in September 1997 at the headquarters in London of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG).

Keywords:

• Dearing Report
• Higher Education Policy