How we regulate quality and standards

The UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment (UKSCQA) provides an arena for discussing UK-wide issues in which the OfS has an interest.

UKSCQA provides sector-led input in relation to higher education quality and standards matters arrangements that continue to be of shared interest across the UK.

It draws on expertise from across the higher education sector. Membership includes the four UK higher education regulators and funding bodies, sector body representatives, academics and students.

Currently the committee's role includes:

• coordinating work on behalf of the sector on degree standards, which includes developing training for external examiners, understanding new approaches to the calibration of standards, and supporting a sector-led project on effective degree algorithms
• coordinating discussion about the UK sector's international activities, including ensuring that approaches to the regulation of transnational education are understood by stakeholders.

Degree standards project

Advance HE has recently completed a five-year project to compare degree standards across providers. It also looked at maintaining degree standards over time. The work was undertaken by Advance HE on behalf of the Office for Students, Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and the Department for the Economy of Northern Ireland.

The project delivered training to strengthen the external examining system, which is one of the core methods for maintaining degree standards across the UK.

Advance HE also worked with a selection of subject associations and Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Bodies to explore ways of comparing standards by subject. This project started in 2016 and concluded in 2021.

The project was overseen by and received its strategic direction from the UKSCQA.