QAA abandons grading system

League tables of universities' teaching quality are to be scrapped under the new quality-assurance regime, it has emerged.

Ministers and funding chiefs appear to have lost the battle to maintain the grading system that has previously been used to compile league tables. Under new quality-assurance methodology, currently being finalised and due to be piloted next year, only narrative descriptions will be used, according to a senior Quality Assurance Agency official.

This is in marked contrast to the old system, whereby university departments were awarded marks out of four in six areas of provision. In the past, these published figures have been aggregated - against recommendations from the QAA - to form the controversial league tables.

Last week, Reading University vice-chancellor and QAA board member Roger Williams warned that despite widespread opposition to numerical judgements from vice-chancellors and principals, the issue was still on the agenda.

The revised system cannot go ahead without the full endorsement of the British funding councils, which have a legal obligation to ensure a proper system of quality assurance is in place. Professor Williams said that the funding councils, facing pressure from ministers, have been arguing to keep a number-based system to fit in with ministers' growing enthusiasm for performance indicators elsewhere in higher education.

But a QAA source has confirmed: "There are no plans for numerical gradings in the papers that have gone to the board and funding councils."

It is understood that the QAA secured the backing of the Higher Education Funding Council for England for a narrative system in a meeting last week. Meetings with the Scottish and Welsh funding councils were due to take place this week. The QAA expects that all the funding councils will have endorsed the new methodology before the QAA's next board meeting, on September 14.

It is understood that even plans for single summative judgements - indicating whether provision is unsatisfactory, satisfactory, or excellent - have also been rejected, although the Welsh funding council is keen to maintain that approach.

The QAA is due to publish its decision in October.