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The past year seems to have flown by in a blur of activity and in this blog we’re marking a significant milestone in the development of the Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework (TQEF).
The milestone comes as the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) publishes the first two reports from the Tertiary Quality Enhancement Review (TQER) process; one for a university (University of St Andrews) and one for a college (Forth Valley College). It’s a good time to pause and reflect on the distance travelled. The journey began four years ago when the Scottish Government accepted a recommendation to explore options for the development of a single quality framework for tertiary education. The recommendation came from the Scottish Funding Council’s (SFC) Review of Coherent Provision and Sustainability.
Getting to this point is testament to the willingness of colleagues and students from across our colleges and universities and the sector agencies to come together, explore, collaborate and co-create a new approach to quality assurance and enhancement. It’s an approach designed to be applied across the full range of our institutions – a framework that recognises and supports the diversity and unique missions of each of Scotland’s colleges and universities.
Looking back at this first year of implementation of TQEF, we can celebrate some remarkable outcomes including:
- The publication of the SFC guidance on quality for setting out shared arrangements for both colleges and universities, which will stand for the first seven year cycle.
- QAA’s publication of the TQER Guide for Institutions.
- The publication of sparqs’ Scotland’s Ambition for Student Partnership.
- The inception and development of the first year of Scotland’s Tertiary Enhancement Programme (STEP) which has been a fantastic collaborative endeavour between the College Development Network, QAA and students and staff from all Scotland’s colleges and universities, with support from sparqs and Education Scotland.
In addition to all this, we can’t forget the significant time and effort institutional staff and students put into developing and submitting their first Self-Evaluation and Action Plans (SEAPs). We’re also grateful for the participation of the University of St Andrews and Forth Valley College in the first external reviews and recognise the value of the work done in preparing for these.
For SFC colleagues the first year of the TQEF has meant implementing new ways of working together to review the SEAPs and prepare for institutional engagements, and developing new cross directorate groups to review and prepare data reports. All of this feeds into the new Outcomes Framework and Assurance Model (OFAM) and supports us to gain assurance on the quality of provision and the student experience in our institutions.
These are still early days for the TQEF and we’re keen to see how the new framework beds in and how well it meets the original ambitions set out for it – including enhancing coherence and simplification across the tertiary system and delivering better outcomes for students. We will undertake an extensive evaluation, which has already started, and will continue across the first cycle.
However, that’s not all we’ll be doing. The coming year will see further support and guidance developed in response to the needs of the sector and shared by the TQEF delivery partners. We are particularly excited to see how the Tertiary Self-Evaluation Toolkit, a new cross-agency resource led by CDN, develops as more good practice is gleaned from and shared by our colleges and universities.
On a final note, congratulations to both the University of St Andrews and Forth Valley College on the successful outcomes in their external reviews, and thank you for volunteering to be the first two institutions to go through that process and support the ongoing development and implementation of the TQEF.
Thank you too to everyone who has been involved in the TQEF so far and, in particular, to the students, our Tertiary Quality Steering Group members and TQEF delivery partners. We look forward to continuing to work with you.
Karen Gray, Assistant Director for Learning and Quality
12 August 2025
