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The Dearing Report, published in July 1997, is the first major government-initiated review of UK higher education since the early 1960s (NCIHE, 1997). It was produced by a Committee of Inquiry chaired by Sir Ron Dearing, which was given a wide-ranging brief, namely to make recommendations on how the purposes, shape, structure, size and funding of higher education in Britain should develop over the next 20 years. It is likely, therefore, to have a profound influence on the environment within which geographers and other academics in UK universities and colleges undertake their work. The Report is intended to set the agenda for higher education into the twenty-first century and its recommendations will impact upon staff, students and disciplines in all areas of post-school education. In the months and weeks before Dearing's publication, its findings and proposals were awaited with considerable interest and no little rumour and speculation, some of which proved well wide of the mark. (There is to be no national curriculum at degree level!) But in one respect, at least, the Report has exceeded expectations: it is over 1700 pages long and weighs in at some 6.5 kg. The good news, however, for busy academics is that there is a summary version which highlights the main conclusions in a mere 54 pages. A still more `user-friendly' and accessible point of entry is provided by this collection of Arena papers which together provide not only a precis of Dearing but also commentaries and discussions, written mainly by geographers, which highlight some of the possible implications for our discipline and consider also how we might respond. Readers none the less wishing to consult the original volumes may like to use the Dearing Web site address:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncishe/
Although prepared at the behest of the British government, many of Dearing's main themes and issues will strike a familiar chord with academics teaching in many different countries around the world. There are, for example, discussions about the contribution of higher education to the economy, about how much student numbers should grow, how expansion should be financed, how standards should be protected, how courses can be strengthened, how the use of CAL (Computer Aided Learning) might be extended, how students' learning can be improved, how the status of...