"The Teaching Excellence Framework is best understood then as an effort to create a proxy signal to indicate quality to potential students and rival institutions through its gold, silver and bronze badges."
Beneath the surface though, higher education is set to be subjected to more state interference and bureaucracy as part of yet another attempt to create a market as the TEF is set to allow institutions to link fee increases to inflation. At present, with inflation at 0% and hardly projected to soar in coming years, will the TEF actually reward and incentivise good quality teaching, or just provide another drain on the resources academics need?