1. Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) Higher Education White Paper
Quality Assurance:
some notes
LMS Education Day
24 May 2016
Peter Giblin
Chair, HE committee of the IMA

2. The problem (according to government)
The proposed solution in general terms
when? (will it happen)
who? (will do it)
what? (will it consist of)

3. 1. The problem (from the White Paper “Success as a knowledge economy: teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice”)
(A White Paper sets out the government’s intentions. It may lead to primary legislation.)
“Many students are dissatisfied with the provision they receive, with over 60% of students feeling that all or some elements of their course are worse than expected and a third of these attributing this to concerns with teaching quality.”

4. “...the recent Higher Education Academy (HEA)–Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) Student Academic Experience Survey found that over one third of undergraduates in England believe their course represents very poor or poor value for money. The consumer organisation Which? has similarly found that three in ten students think that the academic experience of higher education is poor value.
The TEF will, for the first time, link the funding of teaching in higher education to quality and not simply quantity.”

5. 2: the solution in general terms
According to the White Paper, the aim of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is to
“establish a robust framework for gathering the information to measure teaching in its broadest sense,”
“provide clear, understandable information to students about where teaching quality is outstanding.”

6. and here is the connection with money:
“successful TEF performance will allow providers to maintain their fees and access to loans within the rate of inflation and up to the maximum fee cap, which will continue to be set under the same Parliamentary procedure as now.”
(I don’t see any intention to differentiate fees by subject.)

7. How these will separately affect fees in the longer term is not clear.
Eventually the TEF will (at institutional and later discipline level) rate on a 3-point scale:
meets expectations
excellent
outstanding.
How these will separately affect fees in the longer term is not clear. .

8. 3. When? The timeline for the TEF:
Year 1, 2016/17: all providers of HE (undergraduate degrees) which already hold “any form of quality assurance award” will be classed as “meets expectations”.
This will include new “providers” which are not traditional universities at all.
Will this affect mathematics? It might for “degree with QTS”

9. Year 2, 2017/18 Providers can apply to have a TEF rating (and will be guaranteed “meets expectations”). All providers with at least “meets expectations” receive “full inflationary uplift” for fees.
[What happens if a provider doesn’t apply for TEF in Year 2?]
There is a technical consultation on the design of Year 2, open till 12 July. This does not relate to discipline-specific TEF.
“Lessons Learned exercise” following Year 2

10. Year 3, 2018/19 First full year of assessment at provider level
Year 3, 2018/19 First full year of assessment at provider level. Additional “metrics” introduced [see below]. Pilot assessments at discipline level. This may be something we want to influence. These pilots will have no financial consequences.
Year 4, 2019/20 onwards Discipline level assessment, following the pilots. Postgraduate education included.

11. 4: Who will do it?
The body in charge of the TEF and the wider Quality Assurance (QA) is a new Office for Students (OfS).
For the overall QA of which TEF will form one piece of evidence and for monitoring of widening participation and data requirements:

12. “The OfS will introduce a risk-based approach to monitoring those institutions which pass the regulatory entry requirements, ensuring that we maintain high standards while minimising the regulatory burden.”
This QA excercise will probably be carried out by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) or its successor.

13. 5: What will it consist of?
Methodology of the TEF, so far as known
Metrics (“robust, good proxys, benchmarked and contextualised”)
Narrative (maximum 15 pages at institutional level)
“TEF assessments and judgements will be made collectively by an expert panel, chaired by a respected expert, and involving students, employer representatives and a widening participation expert.”

15. So, what are these metrics? Core metrics for Year 2
• “student satisfaction using the
- teaching on course,
- assessment and feedback
- academic support scales
from the National Student Survey; [the NSS has 22 questions relating to 7 aspects of the course of which these are 3]

16. • retention using HESA UK Performance Indicators;
[but this allows students to move to a different provider]
• proportion in employment in further study using 6 month DLHE; [Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education]
And we are consulting on a high skilled employment metric in the Technical Consultation.”

17. There will be a dataset “Longitudinal Education Outcomes” (LEO)
“linking higher education and tax data together to chart the transition of graduates from higher education into the workplace better.”
(Spring 2017, applied in Year /19 of the TEF)
It will
“shine a light on the employability outcomes of courses and institutions for students to evaluate alongside other considerations.”

18. Later metrics (Year 3 developing methodology)
“contact hours and teaching intensity”
Summer 2017:
“robust measures of the value added by different subjects and institutions”

19. The Government believes that excellent teaching can occur in many different forms, in a wide variety of institutions, and it is not the intention of the TEF to constrain or prescribe the form that excellence must take.
What we expect though, is that excellent teaching, whatever its form, delivers excellent outcomes.