Main Article Content
Abstract
This paper begins by examining the key concepts in the title, breaking these into finer components, and seeking responses to the following questions (a) what is Teaching? (b) What characterizes EXCELLENT TEACHING? (c) What is Learning? (d) What would qualify as Excellence in Learning given the world for which we are preparing today's university students? The answers to these preliminary questions then provide the guide to the development of an appropriate strategy for fostering excellence in teaching and learning at the university level. The paper is not to be seen as a mere catalogue of instructions on how to teach. It has instead considered the concepts of excellence as appli[1]ed to Teaching (more of guiding and less of telling) and Learning (more of how effectively you have learnt how to learn and less of how much you have learnt). It has also placed the subject under discussion on the pedestal of entrenching (not just promoting) excellence in teaching and learning in the broader context of enabling institutional policy guidelines that should recognise excellence in teaching as a strong element of the development of the academic needed for the knowledge economy of the 21st century