UK Quality Code for HE

The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) has worked with the sector to develop a set of common reference points that universities and colleges can use for setting, describing and assuring the quality of the learning experience. These reference points were known as the Academic Infrastructure. The new UK Quality Code for Higher Education will replace the Academic Infrastructure from the 2012-13 academic year.

About the Quality Code

The UK Quality Code for Higher Education (the Quality Code) sets out the expectations all providers of UK higher education are required to meet.

It gives all higher education providers a shared starting point for setting, describing and assuring the academic standards of their higher education awards and programmes and the quality of the learning opportunities they provide. Individual education providers use the Quality Code to design their policies for maintaining academic standards and quality.

The QAA are currently working closely with the UK higher education sector to develop the Quality Code. It will replace the set of national reference points known as the Academic Infrastructure from the 2012-13 academic year.

The Quality Code has three parts:

  • Part A on setting and maintaining threshold academic standards
  • Part B on quality and enhancing academic quality
  • Part C on provision of information about higher education.

New chapters will cover learning and teaching, student support and student engagement.

Detailed expectations for each chapter of the Quality Code will be developed by the individual expert advisory groups and be subject to consultation over 2011-13.

External examining

Plans for the development of the Academic Infrastructure have also included changes to the system for external examining.

These changes will aim to increase degree consistency across institutions and improve levels of transparency.

These plans follow a review of external examining that Universities UK and Guild HE carried out in winter 2010. The review found that on the whole the external examining arrangement work well, but it made a number of recommendations in the area of degree consistency and transparency.

The review's report, published in April 2010, strongly advised the adoption of the recommendations by universities as soon as possible and invited the QAA to incorporate them in the ongoing development of the Academic Infrastructure.

The QAA has now published an updated version of their guidance on the issue as part of the new Quality Code.

About the evaluation and consultation

The evaluation of the Academic Infrastructure drew on feedback from higher education professionals, students and other stakeholders. It considered whether the Academic Infrastructure:

  • met and continues to meet its original expectations and anticipated benefits
  • remains relevant and 'fit for purpose'
  • is sufficiently flexible to accommodate future developments in higher education.

Following the evaluation, the QAA launched a consultation in December 2010 which proposed revisions and restructuring.

The QAA published its response to the consultation in June 2011. The report states that instead of consisting of the current four separate elements, the Academic Infrastructure should be restructured as a single UK Quality Code for higher education incorporating all the elements of the existing Academic Infrastructure.

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