The government, on behalf of the public, has an interest in making sure that the education that happens at colleges and universities is as good as possible. The particular principles, guidelines and processes are often referred to as the ‘Quality Arrangements’.
Previously, colleges and universities had different quality arrangements from one another. However, from the 2024-25 academic year Scotland now has one set of quality arrangements which apply in both colleges and universities - Scotland’s Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework (TQEF). In late July 2024 the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) published Guidance on Quality for Colleges and Universities AY 2024-25 to AY 2030-31 which provides information on the new quality arrangements and on the role of colleges, universities and sector agencies within them.
The TQEF is the result of a comprehensive review of college and university sector quality arrangements as part of the SFC Review of Coherent Provision and Sustainability, which included the move to a tertiary approach to quality. More information on this can be found on our SFC Review webpage.
TQEF
Scotland’s Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework (TQEF) is the Scottish tertiary education sector’s approach to quality assurance and enhancement for colleges and universities. It is built on the legacy of the last 20 years of Scotland’s leading approach to quality assurance and enhancement.
The TQEF comprises a shared set of principles, delivery mechanisms and outputs that can be applied to the different contexts of our colleges and universities to give assurance on academic standards and to enhance the quality of the student experience.
The TQEF will answer the question: Is the provision delivered by Scotland’s colleges and universities of high quality and is it improving?
You can read more details about the delivery mechanisms of the TQEF and how students can be involved in these processes in the sections below on SEAP, TQER and STEP and on the SFC website.
Student engagement and partnership in the TQEF
Working in partnership remains fundamental to our approach to quality in Scotland and ‘Student Engagement and Partnership’ is embedded in the TQEF as one of the six principles. To support the sector in this area, the SFC commissioned sparqs to build on our previous work supporting the sector to explore partnership, and to create a resource that assists institutions to evaluate their approach to student partnership and enhance their practices.
Scotland’s Ambition for Student Partnership and its accompanying features and indicators of practice was published in October 2024, designed to be a practical tool for institutions to embed partnership working across their activities and processes. The ambition, features and indicators also form a sector reference point to which institutions should refer when they are asked to evidence how they work in partnership with students. Institutions will need to do this as part of their annual Self-Evaluation and Action Plan (SEAP) submission and as part of the cyclical Tertiary Quality Enhancement Reviews (TQER) process. The ambition, features and indicators can also be used to evaluate internal quality activities, as well as within national enhancement activities such as Scotland’s Tertiary Enhancement Programme (STEP).
Read more about the partnership ambition, features and indicators on our Scotland's Ambition for Student Partnership webpage.
The Student Learning Experience in Scotland
The TQEF seeks to put the experiences of students at the centre of the sector’s approach to quality. To facilitate this, SFC commissioned sparqs to develop a shared sector reference point - the Student Learning Experience model, launched in October 2023. Read more about the model on our SLE model webpage.
The model was developed by students in partnership with staff across the sector, in order to be focused on what matters most to our students. The model is designed to sit at the heart of conversations with students, enabling students and staff to work together to identify priorities to enhance the quality of learning. It plays a key role in Scotland’s quality arrangements and is a sector benchmark in SEAP and TQER processes.
sparqs’ guidance on the TQEF delivery mechanisms, which will be published later in 2024-25, will include information how to use the SLE model and Student Partnership ambition in practice.
SEAP
The Self-Evaluation and Action Plan (SEAP) is a tool to support institutions to reflect on annual institutional quality assurance and enhancement activities and outcomes and to identify key strategic areas for enhancement. The SFC requires every institution to write a SEAP annually.
The SEAP has two parts – a self-evaluation narrative on the current context of the institution and an action plan on what activities the institution will be undertaking to enhance the quality of the student experience.
Student engagement and partnership should be embedded into the content and processes of creating the SEAP narrative and action plan. Additionally, activities in the action plan should be delivered with student partnership as a key approach.
What does this look like in practice? Student engagement and partnership in the SEAP could take many forms. Examples include:
- Using the Student Learning Experience model with course reps regularly in student staff liaison meetings to systematically identify themes for enhancement.
- Elected student officers working with institutional staff to analyse the results of annual engagement surveys and together decide on themes for enhancement.
Elected student officers sitting on the committee/working group that is writing the SEAP document. - It’s anticipated that institutions will work with their student body in several ways in order to create the SEAP narrative. As this is the first year of the SEAP, as time goes on, the sector’s approach to student engagement in the process will develop.
The Scottish Funding Council’s Guidance on Quality for Colleges and Universities includes guidance for institutions on the SEAP.
sparqs has developed SEAP guidance for students' associations and student officers, designed to support meaningful student engagement throughout the SEAP process. Published in October 2024, our guidance includes an overview of the SEAP process; some suggestions of how students can be involved in the development of the SEAP; and suggested actions for students’ associations.
TQER
In 2023, the SFC commissioned QAA Scotland to lead on the design, planning and delivery of a multi-year quality cycle involving peer-led external review of colleges and universities. This external review method is one of the delivery mechanisms of the TQEF.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, QAA Scotland worked with the sector to develop the new review method, Tertiary Quality Enhancement Review (TQER).
TQER is a “peer-led, enhancement-focused approach to review. It contains the flexibility to support different institutional contexts, modes of delivery and levels of learning. Taken together with the wider framework, TQER is intended to support assurance and enhancement of academic standards and the quality of student learning experience in colleges and universities”.
In October 2024 QAA Scotland published its Guide for Institutions on TQER. In 2024-25, sparqs will be developing supporting TQER guidance aimed at student officers and students’ associations. This guidance will be added to this webpage once it is published.
STEP
Scotland’s Tertiary Enhancement Programme (STEP) is the national enhancement programme for Scotland’s tertiary sector. All of Scotland’s colleges and universities are a part of the programme. STEP is designed to enable Scotland’s colleges and universities to work together to improve and enhance learning, teaching, the student experience and staff development across tertiary provision. STEP is one of the delivery mechanisms of Scotland’s Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework (TQEF) and is underpinned by the TQEF principles. The programme is sector-owned and jointly managed by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) and College Development Network (CDN).
STEP runs on a 4-year cycle. Every 4 years, the sector will choose a new topic to work on collaboratively. The topic for 2024 – 2028 is Supporting Diverse Learner Journeys.
The governance of STEP will be the responsibility of three groups:
Four individuals – two staff and two student STEP Topic Leads – will act as key sector-level leads for STEP. The topic leads for this year are:
- Derek Robertson, City of Glasgow College
- Steve Tucker, University of Aberdeen
- Chloe Sandilands, New College Lanarkshire
- Adelayo Adebayo, University of Stirling
For more information, see the STEP website.
Acronym buster
The TQEF is the new tertiary approach to quality assurance and enhancement for Scotland’s colleges and universities. TQER (the new external review system) and STEP (the new enhancement programme) are mechanisms within the TQEF, to ensure that quality assurance and enhancement is delivered.
SEAP is a tool to help institutions reflect on their own activities and outcomes within the TQEF, which they are required to submit annually to the SFC as part of the process.
The SLE model and Scotland’s Ambition for Student Partnership are resources developed by sparqs (commissioned by the SFC and embedded within the TQEF), which the SFC expects institutions to use to ensure effective student engagement and partnership within their processes.
Queries
For further information on any of the above, please contact Megan Brown.
