Quality Enhancement Framework

QAA Scotland, the SFC, Universities Scotland and NUS Scotland have developed the Quality Enhancement Framework (QEF), an enhancement-led approach to monitoring quality in the Scottish higher education sector. The QEF has five main elements:

• a programme of reviews at subject level run at an institutional level
• an institutional-level review
• improved public information on the quality of higher education
• a greater voice for student representatives in institutional quality systems, supported by the student participation in quality Scotland (sparqs) service
• a national programme of developing and sharing good practice in learning and teaching in higher education.  

UK Quality Code

In addition to the QEF, the academic infrastructure provides a set of references points including the UK Quality Code, SCQF and subject benchmark statements.

The UK Quality Code gives all higher education providers a shared starting point for setting, describing and assuring the academic standards of their higher education awards and programmes. Higher education providers are expected to use the UK Quality Code to design their institution’s policies for maintaining academic standards and quality.