Teaching Excellence Framework

The Teaching Excellence Framework (or TEF) is a government assessment of the quality of undergraduate teaching in universities and other higher education providers in England, which may be used from 2020 to determine whether state-funded providers are permitted to raise tuition fees. Higher education providers from elsewhere in the United Kingdom are allowed to opt-in, but the rating has no impact on their funding. The TEF rates universities as Gold, Silver or Bronze, in order of quality of teaching. The first results were published in June 2017. This was considered a "trial year" (even though the non-provisional ratings awarded are valid for 3 years)and is to be followed by a "lessons learned exercise" that will feed into the 2018 TEF and longer-term plans for subject-level ratings.

The TEF ratings are based on statistics such as dropout rates, student satisfaction survey results and graduate employment rates. These are assessed by experts in teaching and learning who make a recommendation to a TEF panel, which includes academics and students, that will make the final award. Universities are measured across three areas: teaching quality, learning environment, and student outcomes and learning gain. For 2017, all institutions meeting basic standards will be allowed to raise fees. The first ratings were to have been announced on 14 June 2017, publication having been delayed from May due to the UK general election, but were postponed until 22 June after the election resulted in a hung parliament. It was expected that 20–30% of the institutions would be rated gold, 50–60% silver, and 20% bronze. The actual distribution, across all rated institutions including further education and alternative providers, was 26% gold, 50% silver, 24% bronze.

The ratings are described by the Department for Education as:

Institutions that do not enter the TEF or that do not meet the minimum quality threshold will not receive an award. Institutions with insufficient data for a full assessment but which meet the quality standards can receive an unrated provisional award.

The TEF ratings do not measure absolute performance, like traditional university league tables, but rather performance against benchmarks based on their student intake. A university with a low absolute dropout rate of 2% and a benchmark of 2% would thus be rated worse on this measure than a university with a much higher absolute dropout rate of 8% but a benchmark of 11%. The ratings are thus a measure of whether a university exceeds, meets or falls short of expectations based on the profile of students admitted and subjects taught.

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