Professional Development Course for External Examiners

External examining is a key feature of the UK higher education system. This course has been developed as part of the Degree Standards project on external examining that has run from 2016 to 2021.

The overarching aim of the Professional Development Course is to contribute to maintenance of degree standards and their reasonable comparability across the UK higher education systems by providing training for external examiners. This is the only training course for external examiners in the UK. It has been developed in collaboration with a range of HE providers.

The aims of the course are to enable aspiring, new or experienced examiners to:

• understand the role of the external examiner as articulated in the UK Quality Code for Higher Education, and be confident to undertake it
• develop a deeper understanding of the nature of academic standards and professional judgement, and explore the implications for external examining
• use evidence-informed approaches to contribute to impartial, transparent judgements on academic standards and the enhancement of student learning.

Booking information

This Professional Development Course will be delivered remotely on 7 and 14 June, or in a blended fashion on 12 July in Leeds.

See here for more information and to enquire about booking onto the course for any of the above dates.