$5 million higher education investment to support world’s best practice

18 Jun 2014 Media release

Teaching at Australian Universities will receive a boost thanks to almost $5 million worth of specifically targeted grants and fellowships from the Coalition Government. These grants and fellowships will help drive better quality teaching and learning in a wide range of areas such as indigenous health, maths and agriculture. Grant recipients will receive Government support under the 2014 Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) programme. Minister for Education the Hon Christopher Pyne MP said the OLT programme is part of the Government’s ongoing commitment to developing the best university teachers and supporting excellent student learning experiences. “This Government is committed to ensuring we have a world-class higher education system that is the envy of our neighbours in the region and around the world,” Mr Pyne said. “However, that can only be achieved if we have the best teachers delivering the best courses on our campuses. “That is why we have committed $3.1 million towards 22 grants that will help Australia’s leading academics create the world’s best teaching and learning environment. “We are also committing $1.8 million to 13 fellowships to help our leading academics continue to be the best in their respective fields. “This is all part of the Government’s four-year $37 billion investment into higher education teaching and will help us to be a global leader in one of our biggest growth sectors.” The grants and fellowships cover a wide range of areas crucial to quality learning and teaching in higher education, and include: · A project to ensure that Indigneous Health programmes better help Indigneous Australians; · A project to examine copyright issues to help Australia's higher education sector develop online courses and become globally competitive in that market; and · Developing online material to better help agricultural students learn mathematics through real world examples. For a full list of 2014 OLT grant and fellowship recipients see www.olt.gov.au. 18 June 2014