HEFCE’s quality review for England, Wales and Northern Ireland has potentially significant knock-on consequences for higher education institutions in Scotland in relation to regulation, comparability within the UK and the sector’s reputation.

This submission sets out the specific strengths of the Scottish model of quality enhancement in our teaching and highlights our concerns in relation to some of the proposals for Scottish institutions. Most notably, whilst Scotland already has distinctive elements in our teaching enhancement there are benefits to be gained for all UK institutions from a cross-UK set of quality standards which could be at risk within the proposals. The Scottish model in the Quality Enhancement Framework already makes students partners in their teaching quality and we doubt how meaningful the HEFCE proposals for student inclusion would be. We do not favour a risk-based approach to teaching excellence.

The full submission is available for download here.

It should be noted that the UK Government has published its Green Paper, Fulfilling our Potential, with further detail on proposals for teaching excellence since this consultation exercise closed.