This paper considers some implications for teaching in higher education of quality assurance demands made in circumstances of financial restraint. The paper suggests that responses must be anchored in improvement in student learning. This has implications for university teaching, for the evaluation of its effectiveness and for leadership in universities. The paper commences with a discussion of an understanding of the nature of the relationship between teaching and learning in higher education resulting from an Australian investigation of student perceptions of university teaching. The understanding arising from this study suggests that, given that the environment is an educational one, both evaluation of teaching and educational leadership should be in harmony with effective approaches to learning and teaching.