QE-TNE Scheme publishes interim report

QAA has published the interim report of its Quality Evaluation and Enhancement of UK Transnational Higher Education (QE-TNE) Scheme.

The QE-TNE Scheme was commissioned by Universities UK and GuildHE and launched in 2021 for an initial five-year duration.

75 UK higher education institutions participate in the Scheme, representing about 70% of the sector's entire TNE student population - more than 400,000 students.

During the first two years of its operation, the total student population engaged in TNE provision among the Scheme's participating institutions increased by 66%.

The Scheme is set to expand further this year, as the Scottish Funding Council has indicated that participation in the Scheme will be a requirement for all Scottish degree-awarding bodies engaging in TNE from the 2024-25 academic year; and also it has been agreed that the opportunity to join the Scheme is to be reopened for English HEIs. (The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales - now Medr - had agreed that all Welsh providers would participate in the Scheme from the outset.)

The Scheme has so far evaluated provision across nine countries - Germany, Egypt, UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Greece and Cyprus - and will, next year, focus on Malaysia, India and Oman.

The most popular mode of provision among QE-TNE participants entails collaborative delivery through consortia, joint awards or franchised/validated programmes. These involve about 40% of all students engaged in such transnational education.

This mid-term report details the key findings of the first three years of the Scheme in terms of governance, partnership arrangements, the student experience, and the balance between the need for adjustments to address local contexts and approaches to ensure the comparability of quality and standards.

It concludes by outlining details of plans for the next two years of the QE-TNE Scheme.

The report is publicly available and is expected to be of particular interest to UK and overseas providers, sector agencies, government bodies, policymakers and TNE stakeholders.

QE-TNE Scheme participants can access the full suite of QE-TNE Scheme resources on our Membership Resources site. Members of participating institutions can sign up to use the site by completing our simple registration form.

For more information about participation in the QE-TNE Scheme, please contact TNE@qaa.ac.uk