This introductory overview seeks to highlight common elements and synergies between learning and teaching and widening access as set out in the two evaluation reports.
In 2010 the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) invited higher education institutions to submit strategies for learning and teaching and for widening access. At the same time the regional Reaching Wider partnerships were also invited to submit strategies covering their work. HEFCW also invited institutions to submit joint learning & teaching/widening access strategies if they so wished. Strategies were submitted in 2011 and three institutions two of them jointly took up the option to submit a joint strategy.
In late 2011 the Higher Education Academy (HEA) as part of their remit from HEFCW carried out a review and analysis of these strategies producing separate evaluation reports for learning and teaching and widening access plus Reaching Wider. Prior to starting the reviews the HEA reviewers published templates for the structure of the evaluation reports to HEFCW for open consultation with the Welsh institutions; as a result a small number of structural modifications were made. At the time of the HEA review institutions were still modifying their widening access strategies in response to feedback from HEFCW.
