The Higher Education Teachers Professional Role - Essay Example

In this context, one may argue that ICTs, being a medium of transmission of knowledge and content through interaction, has tremendous potential to change not only the process of teaching but also the process of learning. The current report, after beginning with a brief introduction shall discuss the various aspects of the title in two main chapters. The first chapter will explain the reason why the UK government has urged universities to invest in ICT and will concentrate on the different challenges posed by ICT in front of the structure of the courses and syllabus at the various levels of higher education system.

The second chapter will discuss the new form of skills and knowledge that teachers require so to use ICT effectively and will draw upon the different strategies that can be used to support lecturers to innovate with ICT. It will conclude with some general observations about the implications of ICT for lecturers’ professional role in the future.The demand for higher education is on the rise globally and the only future prediction can be a further rise. Therefore, in keeping with the population growth, the world may need at least one university per week (Daniel, 1998).

While the demands have already overtaken the supply in most parts of the world, the higher quality education is only affordable by the rich (Bates, 2001). As the competition continues, there will be participants in the market to offer higher education at a lower price. While the higher education system of UK was not able to compete on the price front with the other higher education systems around the world, it was able to live up to the expectations in terms of quality and the money paid. Their market share has however dropped from 16 percent in 1998 to 11 percent in 2004 although there has been a remarkable rise in international students by 50 percent [HEPI (2007) as cited in Laurillard (2007, p.6)].