Oman National Quality Conference 20-21 February 2012  2012 OQN “Quality Management & Enhancement in Higher Education” Giving voice to the voiceless: Learner Autonomy as a Tool to Enhance Quality in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Hashil Al-Sadi The Language Centre Sultan Qaboos University Sultanate of Oman ABSTRACT: Research findings suggest that some prevalent beliefs and practices still exist in schools and higher education institutions in Oman albeit the recent educational reform. For example, education is still viewed as a process of transferring information to the learners in a mechanical way in which learners continue to play a passive role. In addition, learning is largely exam-driven and classrooms are teacher-fronted while most learners lack autonomous learning and independent thinking skills. Ideally, teaching should aim to encourage learners to develop a capacity for critical thinking and taking control over their own learning while at the same time assuming responsibility for all the decisions concerning their learning. In other words, it is no longer enough for students to sit and listen, test and forget. Learners of today need to become autonomous learners, thinkers and planners who are able to sustain learning and attain long-term success. Unfortunately, many of the current beliefs and practices in our schools and higher education institutions are not autonomy supportive. Helping learners become autonomous has therefore been globally recognised as a desirable and feasible goal for any reform in educational. This paper problematizes some of these prevalent practices and their underpinning beliefs in education in Oman and argues for a pedagogy for autonomy in higher education which integrates principles of learner autonomy into teaching, learning, assessment practices as well as teacher development plans as an alternative to the existing model, which is largely characterized by spoon-feeding and missing voice of the learner. INTRODUCTION Nowadays we are witnessing unprecedented developments at the economic, social, political and cultural levels (Militaru, Pavel & Zanfir, 2011). There is also the technological revolution which has altered the structure of the world around us. All these changes mandate governments to educate all students to be effective thinkers, problem solvers, and communicators who can participate as productive members of a global economy and technological society (Lachat, 2001). These changes call for a transformation of our educational system to match the realities of contemporary life. Reform and quality enhancement in education have therefore been a major concern to authorities in different parts of the world. Almost every country in the world is reforming its educational system in order to reinforce the social and national identity in its learners and to help them better respond to the economic, technological and political demands of the rapidly changing future. Oman is no exception. However, there exist three major obstacles in the path of any reform which need to be critically addressed. First of all, our ability to predict what the future will look like so as to prepare our learners to cope with its challenges and respond to its demands remains limited. The focus of education should therefore centre on creating environments where learners can develop capacities for autonomous learning. According to Dam (2000), "no school, or even university, can provide its pupils with all the knowledge and all the skills they will need in their active adult lives. What we can do is give our learners an awareness of how they think and how they learn” (p.27). Secondly, the linearity in which our educational system is structurally and functionally set up (start here and end there), slows down any attempt of reform and makes the success of that reform act less certain. Thirdly, there also exist certain prevalent beliefs and practices in our schools and higher education institutions which are not easy to change as people have taken them for granted. Therefore, most of the debate on educational reforms is centred more on how to reform rather than on what to reform. Sir Ken Robinson, a world renowned creativity and education expert, at a TED conference in 2010 stressed that reform was no use anymore because that was simply improving a broken model. He emphasised that what was needed nowadays is not an evolution in education, but a “revolution” which transforms our underpinning assumptions and beliefs as well as practices into something else. He acknowledged, however, that it was challenging to innovate in education as change is difficult because it means challenging what people have taken for granted.