Top unis rated ‘bronze’ in government’s new ranking system

Some of the UK’s leading universities have failed to get top marks in the Teaching Excellence Framework results, which were released today. How did your uni fair?
You know that gut-wrenching feeling you get when your exam results come through and they’re not as good as you were expecting?

Well, today the tables have turned and it’s the unis themselves that’ll be waiting for an acceptable time to hit the pub and drown their sorrows (or, in some cases, celebrate a better-than-expected result!).

The results of the government’s controversial new rankings system have been released, and it’s bad news for some of the UK’s top universities.

The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), which the government just introduced this year, assesses universities using criteria such as dropout rates, graduate employment levels and student satisfaction, in order to help students make more informed choices about which uni to go to (in theory!).

However, the government also revealed plans to use the TEF results to increase tuition fees each year, which most of you told us you opposed.

Many students also chose to boycott the National Student Survey (which was used to assess student satisfaction in the rankings) in protest, and even the House of Lords unexpectedly voted against the link between TEF and uni fees, which has resulted in the link being delayed until 2020.

TEF results biggest shocks

295 universities across the UK opted into TEF, but only 59 of those received a gold award, whereas 116 got silver and 56 received bronze.

One of the biggest shocks of the results was the London School of Economics being given the lowest rating despite ranking second in the world for social sciences in the QS global uni rankings.

Russell group unis Liverpool and Southampton will also be feeling the pressure today, as they were awarded bronze, whilst new unis such as Coventry and Nottingham Trent got gold!

Are the TEF results reliable?

The introduction of TEF has been really controversial for a number of reasons, and whilst the rankings shouldn't be ignored completely, our position (like many of those in Higher Education) is that the results should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

The reason for this is that the rankings are rely solely on data rather than inspections of lectures or assessed teaching. This means that results can be pretty crude - particularly when there’s only three awards involved!

TEF have even clarified that although a university might rank bronze, it might have elements of gold, and likewise a gold-awarded university might’ve scored bronze in some areas.

Nick Hillman, Director of Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), has said:

I hope university applicants will use the results in their decision-making - but they should do so with caution.

Oh, and in case you're interested in knowing which universities opted out of TEF...

I'm delighted to congratulate the great Scottish & UK universities who offer excellent teaching and didn't take part in the #TEF #TEFresults pic.twitter.com/vFpUELsVgT

— Hannah Graham (@DrHannahGraham) June 22, 2017

TEF university rankings