England’s universities to have medal-style ratings for teaching

In my view, benchmarking could be considered for all three aspects of this evaluation and not only for graduate employment. This is because some factors like the entrant profiles and location can well have potential impact on the retention rates and student satisfaction as well.

Gold, silver and bronze is stupidity incarnate. Consider a university that is 1% over the gold/silver boundary and another that is 1% below it. No person in their right mind would consider that there is any meaningful difference between them. Nonetheless, the impact on recruitment will be severe for the loser. Still, given that UK universities have persisted with 1st, 2:1, 2:2, and 3rd for donkeys, perhaps they deserve an equally stupid grading system for teaching quality?