Updated UK Quality Code puts focus on student voice

The UK’s Quality Assurance Agency has released a new set of guiding principles for universities which emphasise the code’s alignment with European standards.

The updated UK Quality Code provides more detailed guidance than previous standards set in 2018, and includes a new focus on student voice, data assurance and self-monitoring. 

The sector-agreed principles look to create an “inclusive, environmentally sustainable and equitable experience for students and staff”, it said. While they are voluntary for most providers based in England, it remains a key reference point in the quality approaches for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Vicki Stott, chief executive of QAA, said the new edition of the code reflected “significant developments” within the higher education sector, and had been compiled using stakeholder perspectives from across the UK.

“It articulates our shared principles, emphasises the proactive role of students at the heart of our practices, asserts the alignment of our processes with international standards, and highlights for all the world to see our sector’s understanding of the value which education brings to our society, culture and economy and its power to transform people’s lives,” Ms Stott said.

The guidance introduces 12 principles, including a new focus on “engaging students as partners” and “student voice”. The guidance advises that “student engagement through partnership working is strategically led, student-centred and embedded in the culture of providers” and recommends “transparent arrangements are in place for the collective student voice to be heard and responded to”.

It is split into three sections, covering strategic approach, quality and standards, and approaches to quality enhancement. 

The last of these looks to align the UK process more closely to European standards by advising providers to develop and modify programmes and modules to ensure the quality of provision is consistent with the relevant qualifications framework “and, where applicable, the Framework of Qualifications for the European Higher Education Area”. 

It adds: “[The quality code] can act as a basis for training and for benchmarking practice and management reporting on quality and standards. In addition, it can be used as a component part of programme/module approval and review, for working with partners both in the UK and overseas, and to inform continuous improvement.”

Last year the QAA relinquished its role as the designated quality body for England over concerns that the risk-based approach of the sector regulator, the Office for Students, did not align with European standards. The OfS then took on the quality role itself.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com