Tertiary Quality Enhancement Review (TQER) - Practical Guide for students’ associations and student officers - sparqs

This practical guide has been produced for students’ association representatives and staff in the tertiary education sector in Scotland. It provides context and background to the Tertiary Quality Enhancement Review (TQER) process and makes suggestions of what you need to do at each stage. It is also encouraged that institutional staff involved in the review read through this guide and consider how they will contribute to student partnership in the process.

TQER is the external review method for colleges and universities in Scotland and is one of the delivery mechanisms of the Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework (TQEF). TQER is designed to provide assurance on quality standards and the quality of the student experience in Scotland’s colleges and universities. It helps the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) to answer the central question of the TQEF: ‘Is the provision delivered by Scotland’s colleges and universities of high quality and is it improving?’.  All institutions in Scotland will undergo a TQER between 2025 and 2030.

The purpose of the guide is to provide information about TQER, and to support meaningful student engagement and partnership throughout the process. Student partnership is a key part of TQER and students are engaged in several different ways, including as Lead Student Reps, as attendees of meetings with the review team, and as student reviewers.

This guide should be used in conjunction with the QAA Scotland TQER Guide and QAA TQER FAQs, accessible on this webpage. QAA have also published a short TQER Operational Guide for institutions, which provides specific details about logistics to support the review visits. If you have a specific query relating to the TQER at your institution, you should get in touch directly with your Institution Quality Contact.

For further information on TQER, please see our Quality Arrangements webpage and the QAA TQER webpage.

For further information, please contact: 

• Name: Eve Lewis
• Role: Director, sparqs
• Email: eve.lewis@sparqs.ac.uk

(September 2025)

Item Number:302