About the ALTC

The Australian Learning and Teaching Council has been established to:

• promote and support strategic change in higher education institutions for the enhancement of learning and teaching, including curriculum development and assessment;
• raise the profile and encourage recognition of the fundamental importance of teaching in higher education institutions and in the general community;
• foster and acknowledge excellent teaching in higher education;
• develop effective mechanisms for the identification, development, dissemination and embedding of good individual and institutional practice in learning and teaching in Australian higher education;
• develop and support reciprocal national and international arrangements for the purpose of sharing and benchmarking learning and teaching processes; and
• identify learning and teaching issues that impact on the Australian higher education system and facilitate national approaches to address these and other emerging issues.

The principle ways that the Institute achieves its objectives is via its various awards, grants and fellowships schemes. In 2007, the Institute will award in excess of $18 million across all schemes. The schemes include:

• the Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) - to recognise and reward the diverse contributions that individuals and teams make to the quality of student learning;
• the ALTC Fellowship Scheme - to support leading educators to explore a significant educational issue; develop their personal skills and profile and to be ongoing advocates for excellence in learning and teaching; and,
• the Grants Scheme - to support systematic, structured and sustainable models of academic leadership in higher education, to investigate priorities emanating from the Institute's designated responsibilities, and to investigate innovation in learning and teaching, research and development focused on issues of emerging and on-going importance and strategic approaches to addressing the implications of the changing cohort in higher education.

Further information on the ALTC is available from the ALTC website.

The ALTC has launched ALTC Communiqué, a monthly publication to keep you updated on all ALTC activities, programs and initiatives. This publication is available on the ALTC website in a printable, electronic format.