Up and down the land in 2022, Word documents were opened, “Educational Gain” typed at the top, then the authors paused for a careful think.
How to distil the purpose and value of Higher Education into this definition? How to differentiate our definition so that what makes our educational offering distinctive is brought to the fore? How to articulate our definition to reflect our priorities as an institution? These were the issues we faced as we embarked on our TEF submissions.
The Educational Gain element of the TEF exercise was a stimulating exam question as it came with relatively little guidance as to how to approach this section of the submission, how to weigh it and how to evidence it (see p.31 of Regulatory Advice 22). Unlike other parts of the TEF assessment, it was not connected to the student outcome and experience measures used in OfS regulation – although providers could draw from these measures as part of their evidence base.
Interestingly, there was no penalty for not tackling this aspect of the Features of Excellence “a provider will not be prevented from being awarded higher TEF ratings solely based on an absence of developed educational gain measures.“ The proportion of providers that did and did not include a definition of Educational Gain in their TEF submissions will become clear once the provider submissions are published by the OfS in November.
