Education and teaching are core activities at the University. The public, including the Government, is very concerned about the quality of our graduates and the quality of our education. Therefore, they regularly oversee our work through evaluations conducted by the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT), and they have various mechanisms to stimulate educational development and raise the prestige of teaching.
At the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, we have for a long time fostered such a focus, for example through our education initiative InterAct. We have been driven by the idea that education and teaching are core activities and a natural commitment of a university. It is far better to set the agenda ourselves than to leave it to others who do not necessarily have the same in-depth knowledge as we do about what educational aspects we should focus on.
On September 1 2019 the Regulations concerning appointment and promotion to teaching and research posts were amended by strengthening the requirements for educational competence. At the University of Oslo, this is partly expressed by the so-called SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) principles that form the basis of educational competence, and by increasing the formal competence requirement from 150 to 200 hours.
The increased competence requirement presents both opportunities and challenges. The challenge lies in the fact that we (Departments, Faculty and the Central Administration of the University of Oslo) must facilitate professional development opportunities for our employees in order for them to increase their educational competence. However, we should also look at this as an opportunity to develop our focus on education and teaching further.
Although the regulation applies to permanent academic employees, we must also make sure that temporary academic employees are given the same professional development opportunities to acquire necessary educational skills so that they can qualify for permanent positions both within and outside academia.
In addition, a large number of our students are employed as teaching assistants. The Faculty’s Centre for Teaching and Learning in Science (KURT), in collaboration with the Departments and the University's Centre for Learning, Innovation and Academic Development (LINK), is therefore planning how we can establish a comprehensive development program for all our educators, from teaching assistants to professors.
Please contact the Head of Education at your Department or our people at KURT if you have any questions about the consequences of the Regulations concerning appointment and promotion to teaching and research posts.