Getting the message across — loud and clear

Abstract

The question of effective curriculum dissemination has been in the news in recent months, following the publication in December 1980 by the Further Education Curriculum Development Unit of their report Loud and Clear. The report highlights the shortcomings of current (ie, 1979) curriculum dissemination in further and higher education and recommends that central curriculum bodies — BEC, TEC, CGLI, CNAA and the GCE Boards — should work towards a strategy for improved communication, while acknowledging that this would have financial and personnel implications. The message from the researchers, a team from Blackpool & Fylde College of Further & Higher Education, is that such bodies should recognise and respond to the many obstacles to effective dissemination and use facilitating techniques in their distribution networks; they should actively seek information on local arrangements for support and guidance of lecturers concerned with their courses and prompt realistic answers, rather than passively waiting for comments to be made. Since its establishment in 1974, the Business Education Council has always been conscious of the need both to inform would‐be students, parents and employers about what the Council was planning and the courses to be introduced, and of the equally important parallel need to ensure that the lecturers who would be involved in the planning and teaching of those courses received all the information published by BEC at the time when they needed it.