Arden is first university with TEF ‘requires improvement’ rating

A private, for-profit provider has become the first university be given the new “requires improvement” rating in the UK’s Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), after months of wrangling over the result.

Coventry’s Arden University, which specialises in online and blended learning, blamed old data for its TEF performance after it received the lowest rating for both student experience and outcomes.

Just three of the 227 providers who took part in the exercise were given “requires improvement” – introduced where the Office for Students identifies “an absence of excellence”.

Arden – which had 15,120 students enrolled in 2021-22 according to the latest Higher Education Statistics Agency figures – is the first with university status to receive the rating, with the Colchester Institute and David Game College the two previously announced. Goldsmith’s, University of London and BPP University had both previously received “requires improvement” for their student experience but bronze ratings overall.

Arden’s rating was quietly published on the OfS’ TEF dashboard, four months after the majority of institutions received their results. The regulator declined to comment further on the rating but said it would publish its panel’s reasons next month.

A “requires improvement” rating does not automatically trigger regulatory action, the regulator said, but it “forms part of the picture of regulatory intelligence that we draw on to identify cases that may require investigation”. 

The university’s vice-chancellor, Carl Lygo, told Times Higher Education that the university had only received the authority to confer degrees in 2014 and was participating in the TEF for the first time.

Data used in the exercise “covered our first four years operating with university status”, Mr Lygo added.

“During this period, and in the years since, we have made significant investments to ensure we deliver an exceptional, career-oriented education for our students and widen access to higher education,” he said.

Mr Lygo said the university highly valued “the TEF process and take the result that we require improvement seriously”.

“We are naturally disappointed with the findings and conclusions drawn in the report and, given the historic nature of the data presented, we do not feel it fully represents our position and capabilities as a university today,” he said.

The 2023 framework was the first time the OfS had run the exercise, and the first-time participation was compulsory for English providers with more than 500 undergraduates.

Its initial ratings faced several challenges from unhappy institutions, delaying the publication of many of the results until the end of the year.

Arden was the one outstanding result yet to be published and the university is understood to have made several representations to challenge the rating.

Mr Lygo said Arden’s “current performance trajectory is showing substantial improvements since the 2018 data considered during the exercise”, citing continuation rates that were 10 per cent higher.

“Some of this ongoing development is highlighted in the report’s conclusion, which recognises that our staff professional development is of an exceptional calibre, that academic achievement is promoted and encouraged, and that student engagement improvements have produced high-quality outcomes in some areas,” Mr Lygo said.

“The TEF assessment has been a rich learning exercise and we take on board all the panel’s feedback, which will provide a helpful focus as we build our future plans. We remain confident that our ongoing efforts will continue to ensure an outstanding experience and positive outcomes for our students.”

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com