Bridging the Policy-Practice Gap

Abstract

Student-centered learning (SCL) has become a prominent concept in European higher education (HE), sparking interest from both policy makers and practitioners and achieving recognition as an objective element of quality. Since the early 2000s, the European Students’ Union (ESU) has been at the forefront of advocating for SCL as a part of the European policies on HE and has been pushing for a holistic manner of application of SCL. This chapter first describes how student involvement in European HE policies grew stronger and how ESU developed and solidified its advocacy role using it to advocate for, among other goals, SCL. We then provide an overview of SCL’s contributions to European policy documents on higher education and outline how ESU, as an organization representing students, developed its own SCL policies. Third, the implementation of SCL in practice is examined through several resources and report findings from ESU that suggest that the often mentioned “paradigm shift” has not actually occurred. Finally, we discuss several possible challenges in implementation stemming from misconceptions regarding SCL and make suggestions on the practical and policy level derived from ESU’s policies on SCL, which can facilitate implementation and help overcome present challenges in HE practice.