What's the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF)?

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What's the Teaching Excellence Framework? 

The Teaching Excellence Framework (or TEF) is how the standard of teaching at universities, colleges and alternative providers of education is judged by the government via the Office for Students.  

Using national data, as well as information submitted by universities and colleges themselves, the TEF measures excellence in three areas: teaching, learning and student outcomes. 

The awards are judged by an independent panel of experts made up of academics, students and Office for Students staff. The panel looks at student experience and student outcomes data, as well as student and provider submissions that detail more teaching and learning aspects. 

The most recent TEF results were published in 2023, following previous TEF ratings being awarded in 2017, 2018 and 2019. 

What are the Teaching Excellence Framework ratings? 

Similar to the Olympics medal system, institutions are awarded Gold, Silver or Bronze depending on their quality. 

Universities and colleges didn’t have to enter themselves for a TEF rating, but out of the 228 that did apply to be rated for the 2023 ratings, 46 got Gold, 100 got Silver and 29 got bronze. At the time of writing, the ratings for 53 institutions are pending. 

20 Russell Group universities entered themselves into the TEF for 2023, seven of which were given a Gold rating and twelve were awarded Silver. 

Is the Teaching Excellence Framework useful for students? 

In a change from previous TEF results, the 2023 TEF results feature two sub-awards for each institution – one for student experience and one for student outcomes – alongside their overall rating. 

This can be useful for students to see which aspects certain institutions excel at. For example, if you’re more concerned about the experience aspect than graduate outcomes, you can check out which institutions were awarded Gold for student experience.