Today’s results have been a long-time coming. The idea of some sort of Teaching Excellence Framework was initially announced in the 2015 Conservative manifesto and fairly swift action was taken afterwards, with the first results appearing in 2017. The previous set of results before today’s came out in 2019 and, in 2021, institutions were told not to use their existing ratings as they did not provide up-to-date information. This meant it felt like the whole exercise was on pause . Now, around a decade on from when the idea of a TEF was first mooted inside Whitehall (four Prime Ministers and seven University Ministers on), we finally have the new TEF results.
The goal was always to shake the system up a bit. In bald terms, the original purpose of the TEF was to try and show that history, hierarchy and prestige are not always good reflections of teaching or educational quality. This has been achieved, both originally and now. The first specific bit of information trumpeted in the Office for Students’ press release on the new results is the number of less prestigious institutions that have achieved a Gold award: ‘ten are for low entry tariff providers’. But, yes, Oxford and Cambridge do both get triple Gold. Their relative level of resources make any other result unthinkable but this sort of fact may also mean the degree to which TEF can ever truly be a system-breaker could always be limited.
What has not worked so well, to date, is changing applicant behaviour. Metrics and badges like those offered by the TEF often exist to change behaviour. If people can see that teaching quality does not correlate with prestige, then it could shake up who goes where and the TEF could act as a properly competitive force. There is little evidence of this happening to date; indeed, in 2019 half of all applicants did not know what the TEF was. It doesn’t seem to be discussed all that much in schools, for example. But none of this will stop institutions today from boasting about their ‘double’ or ‘triple’ Gold awards. And even if the TEF doesn’t change the dial on applicants’ behaviour, if it contributes to a process of continuous improvement inside institutions, it will be valuable – so long as the extra bureaucracy is worth it.
