England¡¯s higher education regulator has promised to be ¡°more assertive¡± in ensuring that universities uphold standards but has sought to reassure institutions that there will not be ¡°armies of inspectors¡± assessing teaching quality.

Publishing its annual review, the Office for Students¡¯ leaders spotlighted its plans to introduce new minimum requirements for student outcomes, including graduate employment.

¡°We will be more assertive in intervening to ensure that universities and colleges uphold their obligations¡­One course that fails to deliver positive outcomes for students is one course too many,¡± Lord Wharton of Yarm, the regulator¡¯s new chair, writes in a foreword.

But the OfS has courted controversy with its proposal to judge institutions?using an absolute baseline on student outcomes, including proportions going into ¡°managerial and professional¡± jobs, declining to benchmark the metric to take account of student social background.

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Some fear that the outcomes measure could be used as a ¡°back-door student number control¡±, pressuring universities to stop recruiting on courses close to the baseline.

Nicola Dandridge, the regulator¡¯s outgoing chief executive, acknowledges in her commentary that the proposals have ¡°provoked quite a debate, and we have adjusted our plans as a result of the feedback we have received¡±.

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¡°It is important to emphasise again that we expect the majority of registered providers to comfortably outperform the requirements we set in our quality conditions: there will not be armies of OfS inspectors assessing teaching quality, creating rafts of additional bureaucracy,¡± Ms Dandridge writes. ¡°Many providers that we regulate already offer good or outstanding higher education and will be left to get on with what they are already doing well.¡±

But Ms Dandridge adds: ¡°What we cannot do is tolerate the minority of providers that are letting students down. Nobody embarks on a higher education course expecting to find it uninspiring and of poor quality, so that they end up dropping out, or to be unable to find employment afterwards.

¡°Universities and colleges heavily promote the quality of their courses and the employment prospects of their graduates in their marketing; they know how important these are to their students. So courses that offer little to students will have to change, or they will have to close.¡±

Some think that the OfS¡¯ plans on quality are focused mainly on alternative providers and driven by the response to a?legal challenge brought by the for-profit Bloomsbury Institute, which argued that the regulator had not taken account of its student demographic in withdrawing student loan access over quality concerns.

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Lord Wharton, a Conservative peer, signalled that the OfS would back the government¡¯s ¡°levelling-up¡± agenda, signalling that tackling regional inequality would be a priority for the organisation in the future.

¡°Well-paid graduate employment is concentrated in London and the south-east. As we recover from the pandemic, we must redouble our efforts to ensure that ¡®where you are from¡¯ continues to matter less, and ¡®what you can offer¡¯ continues to matter more,¡± he says.

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com