Hey O Stoll - I agree to a point but... isn't the university also failing the student by using PhD students who don't even, by their own admission, know anything about the subject that they are being asked to teach? The students would learn a whole lot more in the 3 years with teachers that know about their subject than teachers that don't. I had the 'pleasure' of being taught by a postgrad that had grasped the suject well enough to put together a weekly presentation on the topic but it was hardly the inspirational guidance that an experienced academic would have given. If the lecturer is not going to impart anymore than can be easily obtained from a book what is the point of the lecture (other than to tick a nice little box somewhere saying contact provision with students has been x hours)? The system sucks and we postgrads help to perpetuate it by agreeing to teach modules we know nothing about for some extra cash.

continued...
Given how much debt students are accumulating to undertake a degree I wouldn't be suprised if we see growing numbers of students making formal complaints against the university for the quality of teaching provision. Certainly in my case, I feel very strongly let down in relation to the module I took. It was supposed to be taught by an academic with about 50 papers to his name and an international reputation and, at the last minute, this switched to a postgrad in the first year of their Mphil and a individual who was not even a postgrad and had no industry experience since graduating with a second class degree! Sorry to offend all you postgrad teachers/seminar leaders out there but I think this is unacceptable!

I agree.

I've been teaching in lot during my PhD and I have to say that most of it was extremely low quality. That's because they asked me to teach subjects I knew less about than the students. Of course, some research-related lectures were interesting but 80% were crap. Students are not stupid so of course they realised that I hadn't got a clue.

I know from my own experience that some universities in this country sell degrees, the whole lecture/seminar/tutorial business is more or less a farce. One day, the whole system will collapse as other countries begin to offer more value for less money and UK universities should better think about their self-complacency.

blueberry i agree that universities should not sell what they don't deliver. i am not so sure about having to know more about a specific topic than the students do. there is a whole theory of learning behind it: the classes are explicitly meant, in my case, NOT to lecture students, but to provide students with an opportunity to think and discuss about things in small groups and thus develop their own knowledge in a more deep-going way than passiv consumption of knowledge. that's why class teachers are not supposed to be teachers but rather facilitators. the key skills class teachers need are didactic, people skills (i know, many do lack these). from this perspective you could say that any class teacher who lectures the students cheats them of an opportunity to actively learn. knowing the topic i teach quite well i confess that it's sometimes easier, and takes less preparation than holding a class that will truly inspire the students to think by themselves.

"i am not so sure about having to know more about a specific topic than the students do."

Sorry, but I disagree. Being a facilitator is only possible if one knows enough about a subject. You can't be a good educator if you have no clue about the subject. That's because you don't know where you want to lead the students towards, so I think both is necessary: the ability to teach and the subject knowledge.

I agree with you blueberry but lets look at the reality. Universities are run to succeed with the RAE. Teaching is not rewarded or given any kind of priority. There is no choice for academics to find success as either an educator or a researcher - you have to be a researcher first, second and third. Of course postgrad students are picking up the slack. Since when did training in research prepare you to be a gifted and inspirational educator?

ok, i don't really want to say that you don't have to know anything about the topic. i guess at the minimum you need an idea of the discipline in general, good guidance from the course convenor as to the aims and objectives of the course, and you need to stay ahead of the students in your reading on the particular topic. knowing your stuff will make teaching easier. from a certain point on i just think that knowing your stuff better won't make you teach better, but people skills/didactics will.
(the less guidance you get from the course convenor, the more you need to know yourself in order to decide which points to get across)
i totally agree also that graduate teaching assistants take the slack from hardly nobody else caring about teaching. we (sometimes) get bad advice/teaching/guidance in our own studies but are expected on the other hand to deliver quality teaching and to pick up the pieces from others' bad teaching due to their low investment.

sorry pamw for sort of hijacking your thread.

Uep - sorry Pamw - very rude of me. I just forgot about the nature of the enquiry and got carried away with answering the replies given...

No worries about hijacking the thread. All input on this subject is welcome. The latest on my particular teaching is that I am not teaching the course I thought I was but another one which is for second years rather than first years but is much more accessible for me as it includes references to literature as well as art. So even though it is a newish area for me I hope I will be able to do a good job and will take into account everything which has been posted here.