The TEC Partnership has announced a significant achievement: the award of indefinite Degree Awarding Powers (DAPs) by the Office for Students (OfS) on 20 August 2025.
This prestigious order empowers the Partnership to design, validate, and award its own degrees indefinitely.
This places the TEC Partnership in an elite group, as only three out of 217 colleges in England hold these full powers.
The Partnership is also highlighted as the first college in the region to be granted this indefinite status for Bachelor Degree Awarding Powers, which it says "marks a new chapter for higher education in the area".
For residents and employers in North Yorkshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire, this development is particularly significant. As members of the TEC Partnership, Scarborough TEC and East Riding College, located in Beverley and Bridlington, stand to benefit directly from these new powers, enhancing local higher education opportunities.
Ann Hardy, Chief Executive of the TEC Partnership, expressed the institution's pride, stating,
“This is a proud moment for our entire community. It confirms that you don't have to leave the region to get a high-quality, life-changing degree. TEC Partnership is here to provide local students employer-aligned higher education for generations to come”.
The indefinite DAPs allow the Partnership to have complete control over its curriculum, ensuring every course is finely tuned to the needs of local and regional industries. This capability means that for employers, the TEC Partnership can “design, develop and bring to market quickly degrees which meet their exact needs,” supporting their long-term workforce planning.
Nathan Michael, Chief Education and Training Officer for the TEC Partnership, highlighted the positive impact on students:
"This new power allows us to enhance the supportive learning environment our students already benefit from. It gives us the flexibility to innovate and respond directly to the ever-changing demands of the job market. This is about providing an education that empowers individuals, strengthens communities, and drives forward our region's economic growth”.
Beyond its own curriculum, the new order also enables the TEC Partnership to collaborate with other institutions, conferring foundation and full degrees. This means that other institutions, or even parts of the Partnership like Scarborough TEC and East Riding College, can now develop higher education courses tailored to their communities, benefiting from the recognised educational standards and processes of the TEC Partnership. Ann Hardy noted her pleasure that they are
“now also able to support other institutions to develop their own higher education courses, so they too can benefit from offering high-quality degrees in their communities”.
The OfS’s decision followed a rigorous assessment process that acknowledged the exceptional quality of the Partnership's teaching, academic governance, student support, and industry engagement. This is further supported by the TEC Partnership's Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) Silver judgement overall and a Gold judgement for student experience.
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