This HEPI blog was kindly authored by QAA Scotland’s Amy Eberlin.
QAA Scotland has today launched the new website for Scotland’s Tertiary Enhancement Programme (STEP), managed in partnership with the College Development Network (CDN).
STEP is a new national enhancement programme that enables Scotland’s colleges and universities to work together to develop initiatives to enhance the learner experience.
At its core, STEP will develop collaborative spaces and support opportunities for ideas, innovations and learning to be created and shared, and facilitate the growth of a tertiary quality culture. This year marks the first time that we will be using this collaborative approach to enhancement across Scotland’s newly integrated tertiary education sector.
Following extensive consultation and a period of transitionary arrangements, Scotland’s new Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework (TQEF) was launched in 2024. Drawing on the strengths of the college and university sectors’ previous arrangements, the TQEF represents an evolution of Scotland’s enhancement-led approach to quality assurance. A set of shared principles, delivery mechanisms and outputs bring consistency and coherence across the tertiary sector, with the inbuilt flexibility to accommodate the varied contexts of Scotland’s colleges and universities. STEP is one delivery mechanism of the TQEF.
The enhancement of the learner journey is a central value of Scottish tertiary education. The TQEF and its delivery mechanisms embed this enhancement-led approach in all their activities. STEP provides Scotland’s colleges and universities with the opportunity to embrace a collaborative approach to addressing shared issues that impact on the learner journey and to designing practical solutions to improve learner outcomes.
QAA is working closely with CDN on the delivery of STEP. This joint delivery enables Scotland’s tertiary education sector to benefit from the learning that our two organisations have gained from undertaking enhancement work with colleges and universities, including the Enhancement Themes, which QAA managed for Scotland’s higher education sector for two decades, and the sector-wide enhancement and workforce development activity CDN has been delivering for colleges as their national agency, such as the National Trauma-informed College Programme.
However, STEP crucially isn’t owned by QAA or CDN – it is a sector-owned initiative that has been co-created through extensive sector engagements over the past year. The process of designing – and now delivering – STEP has been driven by the needs and interests of learners and the staff that work within Scotland’s colleges and universities.
We believe that STEP presents a unique opportunity – a step-change, if you like – for Scotland’s colleges and universities to work together to highlight and address issues that directly impact on student success and outcomes.
Over a four-year cycle, STEP progresses one overarching topic and its supporting activity step-by-step through the stages of discovery, implementation and reflection. The first topic, ‘Supporting Diverse Learner Journeys’, which will run until 2028, recognises the diversity of experiences of learners within Scotland’s colleges and universities.
Through STEP, the Scottish tertiary education sector has developed an infrastructure for collaborative enhancement that embeds student partnership at its heart. Students are equal members of every governance group in STEP, from those setting the strategic direction of the overarching programme of work to those leading a set topic or delivering a collaborative project. This partnership approach ensures that student voice is embedded at every level of STEP.
STEP’s emphasis on the value of collaboration recognises the inherent benefits gained from Scotland’s colleges and universities working together to address shared issues. Learners, regardless of their outcomes and progression paths, should be able to benefit from our accumulated knowledge, experience, learning and expertise in progressive innovation.
Learners should also benefit from a coherent approach to their transition into, through and out of their studies, regardless of the exit point.
This national initiative to share good practice across the tertiary sector – rather than retaining it within siloed areas – is also designed to promote more opportunities for colleges and universities to collaborate at local and regional levels, as well as within and between nations.
Indeed, this move to an integrated tertiary education system is not one unique to Scotland. We need only look over the border to Wales to find another devolved nation that has identified the benefits inherent in working across colleges and universities. It is our hope that this new tertiary approach to national enhancement activity will provide opportunities for lessons from other tertiary education sectors to be shared more widely.
The outputs of STEP projects will be publicly available on the newly launched STEP website to benefit and inform the strategies of students, educators, providers and policymakers within Scotland and beyond – as we step up together to meet the challenges and opportunities that face our tertiary sector.