Our response to changes to quality and standards in higher education

Last updated on Tuesday 20 Dec 2022 at 10:27pm

We have published our response to the phase 2 Office for Students (OfS) consultation on quality and standards.

In principle, we support the changes to quality and standards, but we're looking to work with the OfS as they implement them.

Universities are committed to delivering a high-quality experience for all their students, whatever their background, course or place of study. While nearly all provision will meet and go beyond the proposed new conditions that higher education providers must meet to be registered with the OfS, we recognise the OfS’s concerns about those cases where things are falling short.

We're pleased to see the efforts of the OfS to address concerns raised in our response to the first consultation phase earlier in 2021. We support the OfS’s commitment to regulate in a principle- and risk-based way, which gives universities the freedom to innovate above baseline standards and give students choice.

However, if this regulation is to be effective, there are areas where we're looking for more engagement with the OfS to work through how it's implemented.

Key points:

The OfS should work with the higher education sector to develop how its approach will consider different contexts.
More thought is needed on how universities with teaching partnerships (in the UK and abroad) can avoid unnecessary burden where dealing with multiple regulatory bodies.
We would like more information on how the OfS will identify academic experts, and how their advice will be used alongside other evidence.
As the proposal breaks established links to cross-UK quality and standards frameworks (The UK Quality Code for Higher Education), the OfS will need to communicate its new approach to audiences internationally, to make sure they remain confident in the quality of higher education in England and the UK.
The current proposal to introduce these changes mid-way through the academic year is not something we support. Later this year the OfS will consult on the future of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and its approach to student outcomes, and it will be better to introduce all these changes at the same time.

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