Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to implement the Teaching Excellence Framework proposed in the White Paper entitled Success as a knowledge economy published in May 2016

The Government set out a proposed implementation timetable for the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) in Success as a knowledge economy.

The implementation of the TEF has been in line with the timing set out and 299 institutions, including all English members of the Russell Group, have opted in to the current round of assessments. However, as the White Paper noted, we are implementing the TEF using a staged approach. Following further consultation with the sector about implementing subject level TEF, the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation announced that we will be extending the pilot phase of subject level TEF by an additional year. Two full years of piloting is in line with the best practice demonstrated in the development of the Research Excellence Framework and recognises the additional complexity involved in developing a subject level assessment. This will mean that the first full year of subject level TEF assessments will take place in 2020.