Providing information, advice and guidance for students

As outlined within our Regulatory framework, the OfS’s approach to regulation puts informed student choice and institutional autonomy at its heart.

• We see the dynamic of providers responding to informed student choice as the best mechanism for driving quality and improvement, creating the conditions for informed choice, competition
• We will publish student outcomes and current and future employer needs as a way of informing student choice
• We will incentivise focus on student outcomes, and support mechanisms that allow student transfer.

We want all potential higher education students to receive improved and effective information, advice and guidance so they can make the choices that are right for them. We believe that all potential students should get personalised, high quality and accurate advice to inform what, where and how they study higher education, if that is what they want to do.

We know from research with prospective students that there is much more to do to improve in this area. They consistently tell us that they feel the information and advice they receive is not as good as it could be.

That is why we want to:

• collaborate with a range of partners to improve and join up our advice and guidance work more effectively, to ensure that all different student groups are provided for and the full range of higher education study options are promoted
• deliver a new national online information resource that would both provide authoritative, accurate information about higher education and signpost to other sources of information. This will be launched in autumn 2019.