Developing our future approach to quality assessment

In our proposed strategy for 2025-30, we set out our intention to work with institutions to develop an integrated quality system, which would bring together our current quality assessment activities and methodologies. This was one of the key recommendations of the Public Bodies Review of the OfS.

Through this new system, we aim to drive continuous improvement in the quality of students’ academic experiences and positive outcomes from their education.

We explained that we expect the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) to form the core of a more coherent system, with assessment activity covering a wider range of provision. Equality of opportunity would, of course, remain central to our approach.

Since January, we’ve been speaking with sector and student representative groups to test ideas for what the future system could look like, and use insights we gain to inform proposals that we will consult on. I know many colleagues in the sector have engaged in these discussions and others will want to keep up to date with developments. In this blog, I’ll explore the range of issues that we've been discussing, and where we might be heading in terms of proposals for our future approach. I’ll also explain our next steps.

What we have been discussing

In the meetings, we’ve been discussing how far we should integrate our quality assessment activities into a single system, which could routinely assess all providers to test if they meet our requirements for high quality (set out in the B conditions) as well as driving improvement beyond these requirements:

• Sector and student representative groups shared concerns about the cost and scale of a fully integrated system. Instead, there was support for continuing with targeted risk-based assessments where we have concerns about a provider meeting quality requirements and, alongside this, streamlined assessments to drive continuous improvement at all providers.
• Many supported building on the 2023 TEF for the improvement-focused assessments, and continuity between the current and future systems. Some suggested taking different approaches to reflect the diversity of the sector.
• We’re also considering how to integrate qualitative and quantitative assessments. We’re exploring how to look at whether providers deliver positive student outcomes (in line with condition B3) as part of the improvement-focused assessments rather than separately.

We've been discussing expanding the assessments and what might be in scope, including:

• The implications of all providers taking part, and how the new system could work for providers of all types and sizes. We’re exploring uses of data, how to account for context and what other evidence should inform assessments to reflect the full diversity of providers.
• There is support for the system expanding to cover taught postgraduate as well as undergraduate provision, and we are considering what data (such as student feedback) might be useful for this.
• We've been discussing how to look at courses delivered through partnerships (through both validation and franchise arrangements) as part of the assessments, and have heard reservations about the inclusion of transnational education at this time.
• There is support for the assessments to focus on areas that relate to conditions B1, B2, B3 and B4 (course design, delivery and assessment; academic resources and support; student engagement; and student outcomes), and to consider equality of opportunity in relation to these.

We have also been talking about the approach and potential methods of assessment, including:

• How provider submissions can be reshaped to focus more on improvement, and the best way for students to contribute directly to the process, building on how they made submissions to in the 2023 TEF.
• Whether visits would be useful as part of the assessments. We think visits are an important way of gathering evidence when carrying out targeted risk-based assessments of compliance. For the improvement-focused assessments, feedback has generally been that visits would be too costly and unnecessary, although some view visits as a positive way to understand a provider.
• What kinds of approaches would work, and involve proportionate effort, for providers of all types and sizes.
• How our range of quality assessment activities might meet European Standards and Guidelines, which some sector representative groups would support.

We are also considering what the assessment outcomes should look like, how they might inform students’ decisions, and what would happen with current TEF ratings while we transition to the future system. We see value in the future assessments continuing to generate ratings for different levels of quality, and are exploring options for the elements that should be rated.

Our potential comprehensive approach would assess double the number of providers we assessed in the 2023 TEF. We’ve been discussing moving to a rolling cycle, where we would assess all institutions over a four- to five-year period. This would involve a manageable number of assessments each year and provide more flexibility to respond to signs of increased risk for students.

Next steps

We would like to thank everyone involved in the discussions so far. We will continue to develop proposals in our conversations with sector and student groups, and we plan to consult on these proposals in the autumn.

While we plan to build on the 2023 TEF, it will take us some time to develop, consult on and put in place a future improvement-focused system, which we are likely to propose operating on a rolling cycle.

We expect to continue to assess institutions’ work to improve the experience and outcomes for their students and their evaluation of this under the future system. So, rather than preparing specifically for a rerun of the TEF in 2027, we would encourage institutions to continue with their improvement activity and engage with our consultation proposals later this year.

We look forward to continuing to work with institutions and students to make the system effective and deliver tangible improvements for students.