The impact of student partnership – how embedding student partnership in the Scottish Tertiary Enhancement Framework is supporting responsiveness and resilience at an institutional and national level in Scotland

We have investigated the impact of the TQEF on the student experience during the first year and half of this approach and identified how this has supported institutional resilience by enabling institutions to respond to new challenges from the student body. We have also identified how this approach has fed into our national programme of enhancement activity, ensuring this programme is addressing current challenges, is learning from experiences of students across the sector and is focussed on the student journey. The paper describes how students are partners in the TQEF, including their role in institutional self-evaluation and enhancement planning, annual reporting, external and internal review and the national enhancement programme,  and it focuses on how this partnership has been a key element in the design process. It also describes the two key reference points., the Student Learning Experience model and Scotland’s Ambition for Student Partnership, and their role in underpinning the framework and supporting institutional resilience. It explores the work to develop three interrelated lenses that were identified by students - Mental Health and Wellbeing; Equality Diversity and Inclusion; and Education for Sustainable Development – which operate as underlying themes for the student experience that have been integrated into the quality framework. Importantly, the paper goes on to identify early examples of how this approach is having an impact from a college, university, agency and student perspective, concluding that student partnership is an essential component of a resilient tertiary education sector and identifying key principles for embedding this partnership effectively.

This paper was presented at EQAF and reflects the views of the named authors only.

ISSN: 1375-3797

The impact of student partnership – how embedding student partnership in the Scottish Tertiary Enhancement Framework is supporting responsiveness and resilience at an institutional and national level in Scotland

Debra Macfarlane, Clare Peddie, Eve Lewis, Rob McDermott, Adelayo Adebayo

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