QAA and CDN STEP up for a third time

On Wednesday 26 March, QAA Scotland and the College Development Network (CDN) hosted a day-long event in Glasgow as part of a major new initiative to support further and higher education. 

Called Scotland's Tertiary Enhancement Programme (STEP), this initiative has been commissioned by the Scottish Funding Council, and is run in partnership between CDN and QAA Scotland.

The STEP initiative is Scotland’s new national enhancement programme for colleges and universities. It is designed to enable colleges and universities to work together to improve and enhance learning, teaching, the student experience and staff development across tertiary education in Scotland.

Launched last autumn, STEP supports and promotes the development of collaborative projects designed to create positive impacts for Scotland's tertiary education sector. Each four-year cycle of STEP activities will be themed around a particular topic. The topic of STEP's first cycle of activities, which will run until 2028, is the development of strategies to support diverse learner journeys.

This week's third STEP event followed similar events which took place in Stirling in December and in Inverness in January.

The Glasgow event included sessions in which participants shared ideas around approaches to student engagement and the evaluation of the impacts of the outcomes of planned projects.

"It's brilliant to see colleagues exploring how they can really make a difference for students," said Alison Eales, Quality Enhancement Manager at QAA Scotland.

Dr Gail Toms, Delivery and Engagement Partner at CDN, added: "It's been fantastic to see such creative and forward-thinking ideas come together. The enthusiasm from participants shows how much potential there is to make a real impact across Scotland’s tertiary sector."