Primrose Kitten

In the middle of 2017 a new league table, a new ranking system, started to be used, the Teaching and Excellence Framework, TEF. They gave gold, silver, or bronze rankings to the universities that decided to take part, nearly 300 different universities. The stated aim of this new ranking system was to allow students to make a more informed choice. But universities that gained bronze or above are the ones that are allowed to raise their tuition fees. It is a voluntary scheme, universities that are in it, are the ones that chose to be in it. So not every single university is going to have a gold, silver, or bronze, or provisional if they didn't get the gold, silver, or bronze, ranking. These grades were all databased. So they looked at facilities, student satisfaction, dropout rates, employment or study after university. They didn't go to any of the classes, look at any of the labs, look at any universities or talk to any students. And some of the big universities are not happy because they didn't get the result that they expected. Some of the big places got bronze. So how much attention should we be paying to these gold, silver, or bronze rankings? Well, these were given to university as a whole, not for an individual course. So they completely miss out on the fact that the university that you want to go to may be a specialist in doing this one particular course, or they may have this one specific lecture, or they may do this one specific combination. It was given to the whole university. So you're completely missing out the nuances, the niches, the unique things about universities.

Gold TEF; The Arts University Bournemouth ; Aston University; Bangor University; The University of Bath; The University of Birmingham; Bishop Grosseteste University; The University of Buckingham; University of Cambridge; The Conservatoire for Dance and Drama; Coventry University; De Montfort University; University of Derby; University of Dundee; The University of East Anglia; The University of Essex University of Exeter; Falmouth University; The University of Huddersfield; Imperial College London; University of Keele; The University of Kent; The University of Lancaster; The University of Leeds ; University of Lincoln Liverpool Hope University; Loughborough University; University of Newcastle upon Tyne; The University of Northampton; The Northern School of Art; Norwich University of the Arts; The University of Nottingham; Nottingham Trent University; University of Oxford; University of Portsmouth; The Royal Academy of Music; The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama; Royal College of Music; Royal Northern College of Music; The Royal Veterinary College; University of St Andrews; The University of Surrey

Silver TEF; University of Gloucestershire; University of Greenwich; Heriot-Watt University; University of Hertfordshire; The University of Hull ; King's College London; Leeds Arts University; Leeds Beckett University; Leeds Trinity University; The University of Leicester; Cardiff Metropolitan University; Cardiff University; University of Central Lancashire; University of Chester; The University of Chichester; City, University of London; University of Durham; Liverpool John Moores University; University College London; London South Bank University; The University of Manchester; Manchester Metropolitan University; Middlesex University; Newman University; University of Northumbria at Newcastle; Oxford Brookes University; Queen Mary University of London; Ravensbourne; The University of Reading; The Royal Agricultural University; Royal Holloway, University of London; The University of Sheffield; Sheffield Hallam University; South & City College Birmingham; University of St Mark & St John; St Mary's University, Twickenham; Staffordshire University; University of Sunderland; University of Sussex; Swansea University; Teesside University; The University of Warwick; The University of West London; University of the West of England, Bristol; University of Winchester; University of Worcester; Wrexham Glyndŵr University; University of York

Bronze TEF; Solent University; University of Southampton; St. George's, University of London; University of Suffolk; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance; University of Wales Trinity Saint David; The University of Westminster; University of Wolverhampton; York St John University; Kingston University; The University of Liverpool; London Metropolitan University; The London School of Economics and Political Science; The School of Oriental and African Studies; University of Plymouth; Roehampton University; The University of Salford