The UK’s Teaching Excellence Framework does not foster the inclusion of international students as equals

Of the criticisms that have been levelled at the government’s proposed teaching excellence framework (TEF), very few have focused on what the exercise means for international students’ status in British education. Aneta Hayes argues that the absence of TEF metrics that would measure respectful engagement with international students in the classroom means nothing will be done to help their inclusion as “equals”. Instead, the recently proposed splitting into student “domicile” categories threatens to further contribute to fossilisation of outdated views of international students as economic objects and as deficient. However, it is possible to design metrics that account for the ways in which universities work towards greater equivalence of international students in the classroom.