For many year, universities identified the Quality Assurance Agency as an enemy.?

In in 1999 Alec Broers, then vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, complained about his institution being put ¡°through the mill as though we were some third-rank university which is teaching shoddy degrees to shoddy people¡±. He was particularly annoyed about the short-lived teaching quality assessment scheme, of which the the present teaching excellence framework looks like being a mutant reincarnation.

The QAA revised its approach in the light of the outcry over the TQA and set about providing a handy infrastructure for universities to use to remind themselves what made for good practice, such basic common-sense measures as making sure that students are told what is expected of them and double-marking examination papers. The result, a collaborative endeavour with the sector, was first the code of practice and now the

Now universities are identifying a new enemy: the Office for Students. Cambridge¡¯s indignation about this new body was clear when it insisted in its recent response to the body¡¯s that if the OfS was going to play ¡°regulator¡±, it would have to establish its own ¡°credibility¡± in the sector.?

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So how is it doing? In contrast with the extensive information available on the developing , the OfS has put up only a , carrying a brief ¡°Who we are and what we do¡± statement. There are a few items of hard news.

Providers will find out how to join the new register on 28 February when ¡°guidance¡± will be published. Research is being commissioned to ¡°examine student perceptions of value for money¡±, because student ¡°value for money¡± is to be one of the things on the OfS¡¯ list of planned ¡°achievements¡±.

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The website has announced that the ÖйúAƬ Statistics Agency, which has been collecting information on behalf of all the UK funding councils since 1993, is being adopted as the ¡°designated information body¡± after an extensive but rather time-wasting consultation. There were, it seems, no other candidates for the new England-only and all-providers task, in response to a Department for Education ¡°expressions of interest¡± invitation.

The QAA is also announced as the only suitable candidate, this time for the new ¡°assessing ÖйúAƬ¡± designated body, which is to assess ¡°the quality of, and the standards applied to, ÖйúAƬ¡± and to advise the OfS on the ¡°granting, variation or revocation of degree awarding powers¡±.

Here¡¯s the rub. In the OfS¡¯?, there lurks a ¡°challenge¡±. The QAA is to learn new ways. It is required to ¡°understand the philosophical approach that underpins the OfS¡¯s regulatory framework and to ensure that the design and operation of quality assessment activities is coherent with this¡±.

No word has yet appeared describing or even outlining this ¡°philosophical approach¡±.

But it is apparently also a ¡°shift¡±, and the QAA ¡°will need to address the implications of this shift at a strategic level¡± in order to ¡°ensure that it is able to lead the organisation through changed thinking and working practices¡±.

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There are, however, some hints of what this might mean that demand to be taken out of an obscure paragraph in a letter and given wider exposure.

The that ¡°we recruit experienced ÖйúAƬ professionals and students to conduct our reviews. We do this so that people who know and understand ÖйúAƬ are the ones who check the standards and quality.¡±

The new designated body is told to ¡°ensure that the review process is designed and supported by individuals with appropriate regulatory and/or investigatory skills rather than relying solely on peer review¡±. What sort of non-academic sleuths are envisaged?

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The QAA has never before been a regulator. It has been funded by its subscribing universities as well as by contracts from the UK funding councils to ¡°work with¡± the ÖйúAƬ sector in designing the good practice guidelines in the quality code and to ¡°maintain it on their behalf¡±.

In its new incarnation, it is to become a regulator and ¡°ensure that an appropriate balance is found between its historically close relationship with the sector and successfully adopting the regulatory role required of a designated body¡±.

The QAA as the designated body without comment, but there is clearly going to have to be some discussion about that OfS ¡°philosophy¡± before it moves to its new role.

Let¡¯s hope for the best. Socrates always tested his students by throwing them a proposition to disembowel.

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Gill R. Evans is emeritus professor of medieval theology and intellectual history at the University of Cambridge.