Implementation of a Teaching and Learning Model: Institutional, Programme and Discipline level at a University of Technology in South Africa.

Abstract

To improve the quality of teaching in a university of
technology and to produce the necessary graduate skills which will
improve the economy of South Africa (Altbach, Reisberg and Rumbley
2009), a teaching and learning model should be implemented at three
levels, namely the institution-wide, programme and discipline-specific
level. Universities of technology are increasingly required to implement
a teaching and learning model with an appropriate operational plan.
Based on research that was conducted at a South African university of
technology, this article focuses on the importance of implementing a
teaching and learning model with an operational plan, from the
perspective of academic staff who experience tensions at the three
above-mentioned levels. Within the state of flux due to the transition
from technikon to university status, the university of technology in
question has experienced difficulty in positively changing its
institutional context to an enabling environment in terms of its teaching
and learning model. Four individual interviews and nine group
interviews were conducted with thirty-six academic staff members. The
results show that a disenabling environment is created for teaching and
learning at a university of technology if the teaching and learning model
is not implemented at an institutional level and is not cascaded down to
a programme and discipline-specific level within a university-wide
operational plan.