English universities will no longer be given an overall rating under revised plans for a new Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) but those performing poorly on student outcomes or student experience still face restrictions on their enrolment growth for at least three years.
The Office for Students has announced that it will press on with proposals to limit expansion plans at providers receiving a bronze or requires improvement rating in the revamped exercise, which will run for the first time in 2027-28.
Responding to the results of a consultation on the plans, first announced last September, the OfS said it had agreed that providers should only be given a rating of gold, silver, bronze or requires improvement for each of the two broad categories under assessment – outcomes and experience – rather than an overall rating that combined their scores on both.
According to a document summarising the responses published by the regulator, some people valued the “simplicity and clarity” that overall ratings would bring but a larger proportion were not supportive, questioning “the effectiveness of broad rating judgements more generally in presenting a complete and nuanced picture of a provider’s performance”.
