CETL
area edited by
Jane Gawthrope
Centres for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETL) home page
Introduction
Centres for Excellence were the result of an initiative announced in the 2003 White Paper 'The Future of Higher Education'. This HEFCE initiative was seen as a counter balance to the research emphasis of the RAE.
In January 2005 74 CETLs were approved in England and Northern Ireland, of which 19 were collaborative. The Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) initiative had two main aims: to reward excellent teaching practice, and to further invest in that practice so that CETLs funding delivers substantial benefits to students, teachers and institutions. The Subject Centre network was a key channel of distribution of CETL outcomes to the wider academic community. Funding for CETLs ceased around 2010 and they were either wound up or embedded in their institutions.
Of the 74 CETLs a high proportion were dedicated to generic themes such as employability, assessment and so on. The English Subject Centre identified 11 CETLs whose work was of greatest interest to our community (there are links to these on the right). Four of these were concerned with developing creative practice in teaching in the Humanities. The remaining seven addressed forms of learning and assessment that are of particular interest to the English community.
The English Subject Centre and CETLs
For a short period Dr Christie Carson acted as CETL Liaison Officer for the English Subject Centre, charged with creating concrete relationships with the four CETLs that address the ways in which students can engage with creative practice (ArtsWork Learning Labs at Bath Spa; The Capital Centre at Warwick; C4C Collaborating for Creativity at York St John and the Centre for Employability through the Humanities at Central Lancashire). These CETLs dealt directly with the complex question of how students can learn creative and practical skills alongside their academic study.
Over the last four years the English Subject Centre has worked with many CETLs, participating in events, contributing to advisory boards and building on common areas of interest.
