Jo Johnson’s proposal for a TEF similar to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) has stirred up both approval and dissent amongst university staff. The REF was seen as skewing the focus of universities too far in the direction of high status research and away from the student experience.  Will this address the balance or lead to similar problems?  Problems such as the hiring fair scenario of well-respected teaching experts being wooed to well-resourced universities in advance of the data collection cut off for each TEF period.

There should be much debate about how teaching excellence is measured and the design of a metrics system to deliver robust information.  Given that the final result will probably be a league table of universities – a further step toward the consumer model of education – the quick route would be to use data already available such as:  HEA membership, teaching qualification, National Student Survey results, student retention, student results.   This, of course, sidesteps the wider debate about what Teaching Excellence might actually be and how one might measure it.

You can read the speech at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/teaching-at-the-heart-of-the-system