Education for life 2030+ strategy
A vision for education and skills at Newcastle
Introduction
Our new Education for Life Strategy is ambitious and transformational and provides us with a bridge to the future of higher education at Newcastle.
It will enable us to adapt to the rapidly changing national and global context for higher education, to build agility and flexibility within our curriculum, portfolio, capacity, and support structures, and to develop a learning environment that is inclusive and fit for the future.
Our strategy has been created in partnership with colleagues and students and aims to enhance the education experience of all our students, wherever and whatever they study, and empower them to build their own education for life.
I am passionate about driving continuous enhancement of our educational offer and the student experience at Newcastle and am committed to delivering an education for life that prepares all our students to be global citizens that can visibly lead and tackle the social and environmental challenges we are facing in the UK and world-wide.
The strategy we map out below will begin the transformational change we need toward 2030, but I acknowledge this is a significant piece of work, which will take time, commitment, and continued enthusiasm from all of us to achieve our shared vision. As Pro- Vice Chancellor, Education I will commit to continue to work with, listen to, respond, and value colleagues’ voices in the implementation of our strategy and continue to work in partnership with our students, listening and co-creating, so we put students at the heart of everything we do.
Professor Ruth Valentine, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Education
Vision
To be a global, future-facing provider of leading edge, inclusive and transformational higher education for our students.
Mission
To provide all our students with an education for life that engages, challenges and supports them to discover and fulfil their potential, both while they are studying with us and once they have graduated.
Our aims
Aim 1: Equity
To provide a core, universal offer for all students, including tailored provision where needed, to ensure equity of access, experience and in outcomes for all, regardless of background, identity, nationality, location or mode of study.
Our University is made up of a diverse community of learners who come together in the experience of higher education. Our strategy must recognise, embrace, and support that diversity, meeting students where they are, and acknowledging and responding to who they are, to ensure that all our students have the opportunity to discover and fulfil their potential.
Aim 2: Encounters with the leading edge
To put at the heart of our curriculum and learning experiences, encounters with our world leading research and the leading edge of industry and practice.
As a research-intensive University the connections between our education and research have always been at the core of our provision. We will enhance and expand those connections and also work to embed and strengthen those connections in our curriculum by providing meaningful encounters with the leading edge of industry and practice to ensure that our education remains relevant and connected to the future of work.
Aim 3: Fit for the future
Students
Embodied by our Education for Life Framework, which details the skills, knowledge and experiences our graduates will gain while they are with us, provide an educational experience that ensures our students are fit for their future and the world in which they will live and work.
Teaching, learning, assessment, and support
To ensure that our approaches are informed by developments in pedagogy and best practice and can meet the University's ambitions for its evolving portfolio, size, shape and modes of delivery.
Colleagues
To provide an enabling environment that supports colleagues to have the skills and capacity to embrace the possibilities present in the future world of higher education.
Delivery plan
Objective 1: Leading edge curriculum
A new universal curriculum framework for Newcastle
We will develop and embed a new curriculum framework that speaks to our values, is inclusive by design, supports our disciplines with pedagogic innovation, reflects the expectations of our employers, and simplifies and harmonises structures across the University.
In the framework we will commit to:
- structured encounters with the leading edge of research, industry and practice for all our students
- systematically embedding skills development and surfacing those skills to our students
- an opportunity for every student to engage globally within and beyond their programme
Objective 2: Educator accelerator
A step change in support of educational excellence
Our colleagues who deliver and support education are the driving force of our provision. We will transform the way we attract, develop, and recognise educators, professional colleagues and academic leaders to ensure that they have the time, skills and knowledge to power educational development and innovation and deliver an excellent experience for our students.
Objective 3: Student launchpad
A transformed model of academic support enabling all students to explore and achieve their potential
We recognise that every student arrives at university from a different starting point and takes a different journey through their educational experience. We will transform our model of academic support to better meet the needs of who our students are, focusing on providing professionalised academic, and where needed tailored, support within Schools and connecting with central skills, wellbeing and careers support. We will ensure that all students have a coherent academic support journey into, through and from Newcastle.
Objective 4: Newcastle beyond the curriculum
A new articulation of our core offer beyond the curriculum
We celebrate the wealth of opportunities for students to engage beyond the curriculum – mobility, placements, enterprise, sports, societies, volunteering, part time work and beyond – and recognise that we need to do more to articulate this offer and help students navigate and record what their experiences beyond the curriculum bring to their learning experience.