Harper Adams revealed as one of the best universities for qualified teaching staff

Posted 12 December 2016

Harper Adams University has one of the highest percentages of teacher-qualified lecturing staff in the country, newly-published data has revealed.

Harper Adams is one of the top 10 universities for, and has the sixth highest percentage of, qualified staff (78%) according to the data, which was collected between 2014 and 2015, released by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) and analysed by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa).

“We are delighted to have been placed so high in this national table of qualified teacher numbers,” said Andy Jones, Director of Learning, Teaching and International.

“Harper Adams University employs staff with excellent industrial experience and academic qualifications but has always taken seriously the development of our people as teachers and we continue to invest resources in this important area of our work.’

An academic staff member is counted as holding a teaching qualification if they hold a credit-bearing higher education teaching qualification, or another relevant teaching qualification, or have been recognised in other ways for their teaching expertise, according to Hesa’s definition.

A Times Higher Education article revealing the data explained that teaching qualifications are likely to factor in to the government’s teaching excellence framework assessment of UK universities, which will determine funding, tuition fee caps and student recruitment quotas.

Hefce states that “information about teaching qualifications has been identified as important to students and is seen as an indicator of individual and institutional commitment to teaching and learning”.