The TEF(LON) - will it stick?

A much awaited Green Paper has been published today in the UK entitled, Fulfilling our Potential: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice. The press release from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills can be found at this link. There is much about choice, access and freeing the market, but what has grabbed most people's attention is the idea of establishing a Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) to parallel the Research Excellence Framework (REF). 

For many that I have spoken to, there is agreement that the TEF, which would undoubtedly create another league table, is a response firstly to a perception that there has skewing of effort on research to the detriment of teaching because of the REF, and secondly to the failure of other attempts in parts of the UK (Scotland excepted) to create a market for HE by the introduction of fees. 

To quote the press statement, 'The TEF will use measures such as student satisfaction, student retention rates and graduate job prospects'. Note the lack of conditionality.

Already measures of student satisfaction are used, notably the National Student Survey (NSS), and although not linked to any funding stream are taken very serious and create their own league table. As to whether these measures are reliable and valid as measures of quality is a quite different matter.

The Green Paper does not apply to Scotland, but then nor does the the NSS in theory, and yet we are its servants here. We would probably not resist the TEF since how can we be absence in the league tables when trying to recruit, especially to international students.

There is much debate already going on in various forums here in the UK and colleagues might like to add their thoughts.