‘Absurd’ TEF rules ‘will stifle innovation’, warns Jo Johnson

“Absurd” new rules to prevent English institutions from recruiting more students unless they have a silver or gold rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) will “stifle innovation” by blocking outstanding new providers from gaining university status, former higher education minister Jo Johnson has argued.

Speaking on a panel with the Office for Students’ (OfS) co-chief executive Ruth Hannant, Johnson said he broadly welcomed recently-announced plans to integrate the TEF into the regulation of English higher education– a move he had envisaged a decade ago when he introduced the TEF in 2016.

Under the OfS’ plans, institutions which obtain a bronze award would be blocked from applying for or extending degree-awarding powers, and prevented from applying for some kinds of funding such as the Strategic Priorities Grant, which provides additional cash for teaching in high-cost subjects. Bronze institutions would also be prevented from expanding student recruitment, with measures tied to award made from 2027-28.

Warning of the “danger in putting more weight [on the TEF] than it can bear”, Johnson said the measure would severely damage the growth of high-quality private institutions aiming to achieve degree-awarding powers in their right.

Speaking at a Higher Education Policy Institute event to mark the 10th anniversary of the Higher Education and Research Act (HERA), which originated from a 2016 white paper championed by Johnson, the former minister said “making a pre-condition [to expansion] that you have a silver or gold TEF award is superfluous. It’s absurd”.

The OfS “should drop that,” he added, drawing on his experience on the board of the Dyson Institute for Engineering and Technology, a small private higher education institution founded by the technology mogul James Dyson in 2017.

“Its journey as a new institution has been incredibly difficult. It’s nine or 10 years into that journey and it’s some way from having the same status in terms of getting university status,” said Johnson, who argued this was a “Catch 22 situation” for new providers that often drove them into franchise agreements with universities that required them to adopt the courses taught by those institutions.

Requiring challenger institutions to “fit the mould of existing universities” and demonstrate a lengthy record of teaching excellence to qualify for a silver or gold TEF rating would “stifle innovation,” argued Johnson, who likened it to “telling Tesla that it had to spend five years selling Austin Metros before it was allowed to sell electric vehicles”.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Johnson, who argued the move was indicative of the OfS’ attitude towards innovation since it came into effect following the passing of the 2017 act.

“My hope was competition and innovation would go together and work to drive quality,” reflected Johnson, acknowledging the OfS “had to balance its duties” as a regulator.

“When it has had to make trade-offs it has systematically deprioritised promoting innovation in the system.”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com