TEF means more work but not better teaching, union members say

I'm drafting the response to the consultation for the Council for Defence of British Universities, and can add that our members are similarly either disengaged or disillusioned with TEF. Personally, I don't think this can be fixed by revamping TEF: it was always a bad idea to introduce yet another ranking system into the sector; the problems it was designed to fix have much simpler solutions: see http://cdbu.org.uk/tef-an-ill-conceived-solution-to-a-wrongly-posed-problem/. There is one further point to note, which is that original linkage of TEF with fee-raising powers has damaged confidence of students in NSS, with many boycotting the survey. So one unintended consequence of TEF is that an instrument used to evaluate what students think of their courses is no longer reliable.

***A spokeswoman for the Office for Students, which operates the TEF, said that the UCU’s findings “don’t reflect the results of other research carried out at higher education providers”. The DfE research, which surveyed 195 providers, “found that on balance they were broadly positive towards the TEF and that in many cases it had already increased focus on teaching quality and student outcomes”.*** Well they would say that, would they not? These consultations or surveys of "providers" are meaningless as they are usually answered by the VCs metrics minions without a clue about teaching, research but who are great at BS and Excel. VCs and their mouthpiece UniversitiesUK are not fit for purpose, if that purpose is to represent the interests of UK academia and not just the interests of the ever growing managerial class and admin bureaucracy (the people who hang out at WONKHE). Their very jobs depend on that increase in auditing, monitoring and scoring initiated by and for not only the TEF (but also REF, accreditation agencies and the various questionable rankings including the ones peddled by THE). No wonder that they are "broadly positive" about it.

The Teaching Excellence Framework is nothing to do with teaching at all. It is just another complete waste of money and yet and more bureaucracy. It actually harms teaching by wasting lecturers time and swallowing up more resources and budgets. Some of the lowest quality institutions end up with gold and some of the best get silver/bronze - it is a complete joke.