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This chapter critically examines how recent government papers and policies have informed and contextualised the new Higher Education and Research Bill (HERB) passed in April 2017. In particular, it concerns itself with the issue of ‘teaching excellence’, through what has been termed the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) that has emerged as a key plank of the current government’s policy for future funding of higher education (HE). It will consider the other spurs for reform in HERB, such as the desire to create a culture in HE where teaching has equal status with research, the need to ensure that universities provide better information about their courses and the experiences that they can offer students and the predictable governmental requirement for institutions to give value for money and to be clearly held accountable for any failure to provide a quality service to students. Lastly, there is also a strong emphasis on widening student participation across the sector and ‘levelling the playing field’ so that new providers can set up with the minimum of red tape. It is interesting to note how each of these additional areas for reform is clearly linked to TEF, which, this chapter will argue, will be the key vehicle used to drive them forward.

This chapter starts by interrogating the notion of teaching excellence. It then moves on to discussing some of the data sources currently used in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to monitor and measure the quality of teaching. What do these sources actually reveal about teaching excellence and how might we make better use of them? From large-scale national censuses like the National Student Survey (NSS) to institutional data sets such as teaching observations, the contribution that each source makes to our understanding of the quality of HE teaching is underexplored and contested. It is argued that there is a need for more transparent debate across HEIs and the sector as a whole about the benefits and limitations of such data as well as greater acknowledgement of the role of collaboration over competition. The chapter concludes that teaching excellence is a marketised misconception of the complex reality of the reciprocal relationship between teaching and learning. Contrary to policy rhetoric and far from encouraging an environment of collegial improvement, it introduces an unhelpful ethos of contrived competition into what is essentially an interdependent relationship underpinned by collective collaboration. It is by focusing attention on the latter where the real gains and insights are likely to be made.