University of Leeds UCU agree with the stated objectives of the Green Paper: to provide the highest quality of education for our students, empowering them in the process, and ensure that a university education can be enjoyed by everyone who is able to benefit from it. We do not agree however that the TEF is a means of achieving these objectives. Nowhere in the documentation is ‘excellence’ defined, and this plainly undermines the arguments made about achieving it. The TEF will add another layer of bureaucracy onto an already over‐burdened profession, making excellent teaching harder to achieve. We do not believe that the metrics being proposed represent adequate proxies for teaching excellence. It is also self-evident that the attempt to define sector‐wide metrics could not adequately recognise the differences between disciplines in pedagogic, delivery or assessment terms. The Green Paper argues that information about key elements of the educational experience either does not exist or is not widely available to applicants, and therefore cannot assist students in making informed decisions about their choice of university. We do not recognise this as based in fact. There will be an increased administrative burden while universities accommodate the new requirements and change their … continue reading