The four-year degree in Hong Kong: an opportunity for quality enhancement

Research and development in higher education in the last decades of the twentieth century focused on issues of teaching and learning. Research focused on teachers’ and learners’ experiences of active approaches to teaching and learning, and of notions of teacher and learner centredness (Ramsden, 2003; Prosser and Trigwell, 1999). Development focused on workshops and seminars aimed at promoting more active approaches to teaching and learning, engaging students more deeply in their studies, and the design of formal courses - Graduate Certificates - in teaching and learning in higher education. Early in the twenty-first century, the focus is moving more towards curriculum issues: what we teach; how we structure what we teach; how we align aims and learning outcomes with teaching and learning activities and assessment strategies at the programme as well as the module level; how we broaden the curriculum to address issues in the twenty-first century.