Principal Assessor

Expires

24th June 2022

About the OfS

We are the independent regulator of higher education in England. Our primary aim is to ensure that English higher education is delivering positive outcomes for students – past, present, and future.

We have recently announced changes to our regulation of quality in English higher education providers, following a comprehensive consultation. Our revised requirements set out our minimum requirements for quality. They will allow us to intervene where higher education courses fall below our expectations and help us to ensure that all students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, have meaningful choices of high-quality courses and are effectively supported to succeed.

We are now initiating a programme of work in 2022-23, through which we will identify individual universities and colleges that may not be meeting our minimum requirements. We are seeking academic experts to work with us on this.

 

The role

We are now recruiting up to two Principal Assessors.

This is an exciting opportunity for you to use your experience and expertise to design and shape the development of the OfS’s investigatory approach to quality issues, in a way that supports the delivery of the OfS’s strategy. This will include leading in the appointment and training of a panel of academic expert assessors and in the quality assurance of their investigatory work.

We are also recruiting for our panel of academic expert assessors and more information can be found here Careers (myworkdayjobs.com)

You will also lead teams of academic expert assessors in investigating issues relating to the quality of higher education in providers in England.

 

For this Principal Assessor role, we are looking for experienced academics who are willing and able to challenge established norms where these are not delivering a high-quality academic experience for students.

We are not seeking expertise in the design and operation of quality assurance processes. We are seeking academics who are able to reach and explain robust and defensible academic judgements, focusing on the learning, teaching and assessment provided for students, rather than the processes that the provider follows to deliver those things.

 

About you

You will be an academic expert, with a doctoral-level qualification, with experience in designing and delivering learning, teaching and assessment in higher education. You may be an expert within your academic discipline, or you may have experience across disciplines, and in one or more institutions. Either way, you will be able to use your expertise, both subject-specific expertise and broader pedagogical expertise, to reach academic judgements about the quality of higher education in a range of different contexts.

You will have a minimum of five years’ experience in an academic role in an English higher education provider and this experience will be recent. We are particularly interested in applications from those from a university or college with the strongest performance in providing a high-quality student experience which enables positive student outcomes.

It is also desirable for you to have experience in leading groups, panels or teams in review activity.

You will have a desire to set high standards and challenge norms where necessary and be able to develop and coach others to do the same. You will play a key role in identifying issues that need to be improved at providers that are not meeting our minimum requirements for quality. In turn, you will play an integral role in driving up the quality of higher education across the sector and so in safeguarding the reputation of English higher education.

 

Working for us

The OfS regulates the higher education sector on behalf of all students. We value diversity and the wealth of perspectives, experience and ideas that it brings to our work, and we strive to embed equality of opportunity in everything we do.

We recruit based on fair and open competition and welcome applications from candidates regardless of age, disability, race and ethnicity, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation and socio-economic background.

 

Details

  • Fixed term – 24 months (requests for secondments will be welcomed)
  • Full-time or Part-time (0.8 FTE minimum)
  • Location: Bristol or London with possible flexibility for hybrid (remote/office) working. Some business travel
  • Closing date for applications: 24 June 2022.
  • Interviews: mid-July 2022.

 

To apply please click here .