Tertiary sector enhancement activity - Scottish Funding Council

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We were aware that colleges and universities valued a sector-led approach to enhancement. We took steps to shape how we built on this to develop Scotland’s Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework.

For the period 2022-24, SFC commissioned the Tertiary Enhancement Topic, The future of learning and teaching: defining and delivering an effective and inclusive digital/blended offering to capitalise on existing agency work and expertise and address a priority area for the sector. The purpose of this project was to build on the outcomes of external review work undertaken across institutions in AY 2021-22. This brought together activity across the tertiary sector where a shared approach to enhancement activity could be helpful to reduce duplication, share practice and improve alignment and focus.

Learning from the Tertiary Enhancement Topic project and from previous thematic enhancement work helped to inform thinking about future models of delivery.

This workstream aimed to design and establish the overall process, structures, and oversight for a tertiary approach to sector-level enhancement activity.

Key questions

How do we work together within the TQEF to deliver impact for learners and for staff?
What structures and processes best support that in a tertiary environment?
What should the architecture for connecting quality practitioners and educators across both sectors look like?
Would solely tertiary networks enhance or diminish the distinctiveness and diversity of the sectors? Do we need to retain some existing structures?
How will the sectors organise and manage co-creation of future processes once the development phase is finished?
How can we capitalise on the expertise of our agency partners working together on key priorities?

Lead agency

This work took a joint agency approach but was co-ordinated by QAA.

Progress update

Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and the College Development Network (CDN) have continued to work with colleges and university on developing Scotland’s Tertiary Enhancement Programme (STEP) and have agreed the first topic for this new approach to national enhancement, which will be:

“Supporting Diverse Learner Journeys”

The STEP will be taken forward over a four-year cycle:

Year 1: Discovery – staff and students will come together for a series of discovery days to develop the core programme of activities.

Year 2 and 3: Implementation – the focus will be to launch and carry out the planned projects.

Year 4: Reflection – provide time to undertake summative evaluation of the cycle, looking at the impact of the work carried out and effectiveness of delivery.

STEP Governance

The STEP programme will be sector owned and led, and its governance structure will be as follows:

STEP Network: which will be a forum for the sector to work together on STEP and made up of a staff and student representative from each institution.
STEP Topic Leadership Group: will provide operational leadership for the STEP.
STEP Steering Group: will provide strategic leadership and direction.

Next steps

QAA and CDN are working with the sector to establish the new governance groups and will then move into the discovery phase of the programme.