Introduction

The introduction of teaching excellence, teaching awards and the teaching excellence framework (TEF) can be counterproductive to creating a thriving teaching culture for Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff in progressing their teaching careers in academia, particularly with a focus on HE as a market and a form of consumerism that can lose sight of critical discussions concerning pedagogy, learning and teaching theory (Tomlinson et al, 2020). It is this current notion of teaching excellence that is embedded within the racist and White supremacies identified in the ideas of research excellence (Obasi, 2020).

The TEF ‘is a national exercise, introduced by the government in England. It assesses excellence in teaching at universities and colleges, and how each higher education provider ensures excellent outcomes for their students in terms of graduatelevel employment or further study’ (Office for Students, 2020). It is mostly informed by the National Student Survey (NSS), and upon its implementation was considered to perpetuate inequalities in students’ access and retention in HE (French, 2020). It is noted that ‘splitting university performance on the core metrics based on NSS scores by student “domicile” (United Kingdom, EU, and non-EU), as it is currently proposed in the plans for the TEF, is not sufficient. The rationale behind such “splitting” is to incentivise universities to address inequity among different student groups’ (Hayes, 2017). It is also evidenced that the NSS, which heavily informs the TEF, finds that students will give lower scores in teaching excellence to Black, Asian and minority ethnic academics (Asquith, 2016). An analysis of NSS survey data from ‘2014 results found that the ethnicity of lecturers was one of the most significant influencers on the overall satisfaction of UK undergraduates’ (Havergal, 2016). However, despite efforts to continuously improve the TEF, the framework continues to neglect to involve the voices of Black, Asian and minority ethnic students and staff in its development and outputs (Cui, 2020).

Lacking a voice

There is currently little literature exploring the role of the teaching excellence framework (TEF) through the lens of race and racial disparities, with some literature highlighting the emphasis on the role student experience plays in recognising teaching excellence (for example, Suki, 2020).