The next Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) will not run as planned in 2027, the English higher education regulator has indicated, as it considers how to integrate the exercise into its wider quality assessments.

Graeme Rosenberg, head of student outcomes at the Office for Students (OfS), has told institutions not to prepare “specifically for a rerun of the TEF in 2027” but instead to expect it to be merged into a “more coherent system, with assessment activity covering a wider range of provision”.

The OfS last ran the TEF, envisaged as a way of informing students and applicants about the teaching quality of an institution, in 2023 – awarding gold, silver, bronze and requires improvement ratings.

These ratings had been due to be valid for four years before the whole exercise was repeated.

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Instead, the OfS is considering how to more closely align the TEF with its other ways of measuring quality, following a recommendation in the review of the regulator carried out by current chair David Behan.

Writing in a , Rosenberg says that conversations with universities on what a future system could look like had shown support for expanding it to cover both postgraduate taught and undergraduate provision.

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The regulator has also considered how a new system “could work for providers of all types and sizes” and how it would “account for context and what other evidence should inform assessments to reflect the full diversity of providers”.

Courses delivered through franchising and validation arrangements may also be looked at but there were “reservations” about including those delivered through transnational education.

Another consideration, according to Rosenberg, was whether visits should take place as part of assessments, as opposed to the current system that focuses on paperwork submitted by institutions, although there were concerns these would be” too costly and unnecessary”.

“We are also considering what the assessment outcomes should look like, how they might inform students’ decisions, and what would happen with current TEF ratings while we transition to the future system,” says Rosenberg.

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“We see value in the future assessments continuing to generate ratings for different levels of quality, and are exploring options for the elements that should be rated.”

A new approach would assess double the number of institutions that took part in the 2023 TEF, he says, and could move to a rolling cycle where all are assessed over a four- to five-year period.

The TEF was seen as a way of shining a light on the teaching quality of unsung providers and recognising the “diversity of excellence” in the sector, beyond those that traditionally appear at the top of rankings.

But surveys have shown that students are broadly unaware of the exercise, while it has been criticised as costly and time-consuming.

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The last iteration was hit with issues when dozens of institutions challenged their initial ratings, with those unhappy with their scores claiming that the process had penalised those with large numbers of disadvantaged students.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com