Quality Assurance, New Providers and the Impact of the TEF

The Knowledge Partnership keep up to date with the political environment for England HE's market, with Rebecca from the Research Team attending this Westminster Higher Education Forum Keynote Seminar on 9th February.

The seminar, "Competition and Regulation in England's Higher Education Market - Quality Assurance, New Providers and the Impact of TEF", was very interesting and provided some key insights for the team.

The bulk of the discussion surrounded:

• The Office for Students (OfS) and its multiple roles, including questions as to whether there will be a conflict of interest with the office performing the functions of both a regulator and a validator
• Extent to which OfS is for students, and how/whether students views will be taken into account
• New role of students as consumers - implementing the student protection plan
• Flaws of the TEF - definition of teaching excellence and the proxies used to measure it
• Results of low or high TEF scoring universities - tuition fee raises and course / university closures

It was a really interesting morning, with lots of food for thought!