Engaging the Curriculum

Ronald Barnett · Kelly Coate

Oct 2004 · McGraw-Hill Education (UK)

About this ebook

There is greater interest than ever before in higher education: more money is being spent on it, more students are registered and more courses are being taught. And yet the matter that is arguably at the heart of higher education, the curriculum, is noticeable for its absence in public debate and in the literature on higher education. This book begins to redress the balance.

Even though the term ‘curriculum’ may be missing from debates on higher education, curricula are changing rapidly and in significant ways. What we are seeing, therefore, is curriculum change by stealth, in which curricula are being reframed to enable students to acquire skills that have market value. In turn, curricula are running the risk of fragmenting as knowledge and skills exert their separate claims. Such a fragmented curriculum is falling well short of the challenges of the twenty-first century.

A complex and uncertain world requires curricula in which students as human beings are placed at their centre: what is called for are curricula that offer no less than the prospect of encouraging the formation of human being and becoming. A curriculum of this kind has to be understood as the imaginative design of spaces where creative things can happen as students become engaged.

Based upon a study of curricula in UK universities, Engaging the Curriculum in Higher Education offers an uncompromising thesis about the development of higher education and is essential reading for those who care about its future.

About the author

Ronald Barnett is Professor of Higher Education at the Institute of Education, University of London where, from 1994 to 2001, he was also Dean of Professional Development. His books include The Idea of Higher Education, The Limits of Competence, Higher Education: A Critical Business, Realizing the University and Beyond All Reason (all published by Open University Press).

Kelly Coate is Research Officer in the School of Lifelong Education and International Development at the Institute of Education, University of London. Her research interests are in the areas of teaching and learning in higher education, the higher education curriculum, and social justice and equity issues.