Selection committee releases TEF report and recommendations.

A House of Commons select committee has published a report and recommendations for designing and implementing the TEF. It draws on the many responses to its inquiry into quality assessment in HE, which closed in October 2015, just before the publication of the Government HE Green paper.

The Committee expresses scepticism about linking increases in tuition fees with TEF results and makes the recommendation that ‘a multi-tiered TEF should only be introduced once Government can demonstrate its metrics have the confidence of students and universities.’

They also stress the importance of a further consultation on metrics, and recommends that this consultation include

• an assessment of the evidence that any proposed metric is linked to teaching quality, and
• an assessment of the potential unintended consequences which could arise from an institution seeking to optimise its score on each metric, with proposals on how these risks can best be mitigated.

The Committee warns that if the TEF could have a damaging effect on the reputation of Universities if it is rushed or poorly designed.

The full report from the Select Committee is here: http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/business-innovation-and-skills/news-parliament-2015/quality-of-higher-education-report-published-15-16/

SCONUL’s Transformation Strategy Group will respond to the technical consultation once it appears. The group’s chair, Oliver Pritchard, will be running a consultation workshop in preparation for this at our event on 29 April, ‘Measuring excellence: Meeting the challenges of proposed sector changes’. Registration for this event will open later this week, information is available here: http://www.sconul.ac.uk/event/measuring-excellence-meeting-the-challenges-of-proposed-changes-to-sector