The MQE Outcomes 2026 guide helps providers and stakeholders understand the MFHEA consultation, evaluate questions, understand the MQE position, and formulate informed and autonomous institutional responses before submission.

The consultation on new outcomes opens an important phase for the higher education sector in Malta. MFHEA’s public consultation on the new Criteria for Outcomes & Follow-up Procedure Framework is not only about how the outcomes of evaluations are classified: it also affects the predictability of decisions, the proportionality of regulatory measures and how providers will be able to deal with follow-ups, renewals and institution-building pathways.

For this reason, Malta Quality Education has prepared an independent guide dedicated to the new outcomes. The aim is not to suggest to providers what to answer or to offer texts to copy, but to provide a technical reading of the individual questions of the consultation, clarifying for each the position of MQE and the elements that each institution should evaluate before formulating its own answer.

Why the consultation on outcomes deserves a careful reading

The Framework on new Outcomes introduces a more explicit structure between compliance judgments, risk levels and regulatory consequences. This greater predictability is positive, but it makes it even more important to understand how the judgment that feeds the decision tables is formed. A system can be very clear about the final consequences and, at the same time, leave room for interpretation in the previous phase, when findings and indicators are translated into Full, Substantial, Partial or Non-Compliance.

In the MQE reading, the new outcomes should therefore be examined not only through the numerical thresholds provided in the four tables prepared by MFHEA, but also in the light of concepts such as materiality, severity, impact on students, remediation skills and consistency between evidence and judgment. These are elements that can affect an already operational provider in a very different way than a new applicant or an institution aspiring to University or Self-Accrediting Status.

The consultation on the new outcomes gives stakeholders the opportunity to assess whether the new set-up is sufficiently clear, proportionate and applicable in practice. However, the quality of the contribution will depend on the ability to distinguish between the clarity of the tables, the correctness of the thresholds, the proportionality of the measures and the quality of the follow-up process.

A question-by-question guide

The new MQE guide fully follows the official questions relaunched by MFHEA and has been drawn up at the request of various stakeholders and accompanies the reader through all the sections of the consultation. For each question, the new outcomes are analyzed with a summary MQE position, a brief technical comment and some elements that the provider can consider in its evaluation.

This approach allows new outcomes to be read in a more operational way. Questions on fair and proportionate thresholds, for example, are not treated as simple requests for consent or dissent: the guide highlights why a threshold can produce different effects depending on the type of procedure, the EQA history of the institution and the nature of the deficiencies detected.

The same applies to follow-up. In the context of new outcomes, MQE draws attention to the distinction between practical feasibility, administrative burden, effective remediation and regulatory consequences. The provider remains fully free to agree or not with the position expressed by MQE and retains responsibility for its submission.

From analysis to conscious participation

The purpose of the guide is to make the new outcomes more accessible as a reference tool, without oversimplifying their regulatory complexity. Each institution can use the document to identify the most relevant questions with respect to its position, its accreditation history and its future objectives.

For MQE, the new outcomes also represent an opportunity to reinforce an essential principle: a consultation is most useful when stakeholders understand not only what is being asked, but why that question can have concrete consequences on the governance, quality assurance and regulatory continuity of the institution.

The guide on new outcomes is therefore designed as an independent support for reflection. It does not replace the official Framework, does not prescribe a response and does not represent the point of view of the entire industry. Instead, it offers the technical position of Malta Quality Education so that each stakeholder can formulate their own, motivated and informed response.