Medr/2026/50: Consultation on provider quality performance measures for tertiary education

Introduction

1. Under the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022 Medr has a duty to monitor and promote improvement in the quality of education provided by or on behalf of registered providers, and that funded or otherwise secured by Medr (section 51).

2. Medr’s regulatory framework sets out the Conditions of Registration and Funding that providers must meet. These conditions form the core requirements for compliance and apply across the tertiary education sector. They include the condition for quality and continuous improvement, which requires registered and/or funded providers to demonstrate that their provision, including that delivered on their behalf, is of good quality and that they engage with continuous improvement. This supports delivery of Strategic Aim 3 of Medr’s Strategic Plan, i.e. to ensure learners receive the highest-quality provision in a tertiary education sector that strives for continuous improvement.

3. The Quality and Continuous Improvement condition states that one of the compliance requirements is to have acceptable performance data. The Quality Framework notes that by 2027 Medr expects to have reviewed data collection arrangements and consulted on performance measures and the use of benchmarking. This document provides that consultation. It sets out Medr’s proposals for provider quality performance measures across tertiary education, which will form part of our regulatory monitoring.

4. The measures set out in this document are designed to inform our understanding of provider performance in relation to quality and continuous improvement.

5. These measures will support wider monitoring of areas such as Welsh medium, equalities, participation, and access to tertiary education.  Medr will also carry out separate work on setting out and measuring organisational metrics against our long-term ambitions, which will take account of these areas.

Aim of consultation and rationale

6. The proposals aim to enable Medr to achieve consistency in how we assess compliance of the tertiary education sector with the quality and continuous improvement condition.  They will support us doing this in a holistic manner and will support a shared contextual understanding of performance. Where possible, this will replace existing publications, in order to streamline reporting.

7. The proposals also aim to support providers in conducting self-evaluation and identifying priorities for continuous improvement, as set out in the Quality Framework. This will help providers assure themselves that they meet the requirements of the Quality and Continuous Improvement condition.

8. Finally, the proposals aim to ensure that external quality assessment is informed by a set of data that is available to all parties.

9. Annex A provides a set of Frequently Asked Questions in relation to performance data.

Responses

A copy of the consultation questions is at Annex E. Please respond via the online form by 9 December 2026

Further information

Any queries regarding this consultation should be directed to [email protected].

Online events

We will be hosting two webinars that will allow stakeholders and interested parties to hear more about our quality performance measures with the opportunity to ask questions and find out more details of how the measures will operate:

Event 1: (online) 16 November 2026 13.00-14.00

Event 2: (online) 17 November 2026 13.00-14.00

The sessions are the same and will be recorded for colleagues unable to join us.