Subject Benchmarking in the UK

Abstract

Subject benchmarking was part of an agglomeration of quality assurance measures that emerged in United Kingdom higher education during the 1990s in large part as a reaction to the precipitous transition from “elite” to “mass” higher education in the early years of the decade. Rapid growth of student numbers was accompanied by expansion in the number of subjects and areas of study offered as degree programmes. This aroused political attention, and national government, as the main provider of funds, required the higher education sector to take steps to ensure that all its degree programmes were fit for the purpose. Over 50 subject-benchmarking committees issued reports between 1998 and 2001 setting out in some detail what degree programmes in the specialist subjects might be expected to cover. However, despite the initial intentions the benchmark reports were never used for hard regulatory purposes and instead have become developmental tools, particularly in new subject areas trying to attain academic respectability. The whole exercise has demonstrated the enduring collegiality of the academic community in British higher education and the continuing belief that in some real sense degrees from all higher education institutions possess something meaningful in common.