Higher Education: Beverley and Holderness

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many and what percentage of (a) 18-year-olds and (b) 19-year-olds from Beverley and Holderness attended university courses in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement. (108460)

The latest available figures on participation in higher education by constituency were published by the Higher Education funding Council for England in January 2005 in “Young Participation in England”, which is available from their website at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2005/05_03/

This report shows participation rates for young people who enter higher education aged 18 or 19, disaggregated by constituency, for the years 1997 to 2000. The figures for Beverley and Holderness, and the comparable figure for England, are shown in the table. HEFCE have not produced participation rates beyond 2000.

*Young Participation Rate (YPR (A)) in Higher Education* ¹*for year cohort aged 18*
	1997	1998	1999	2000
Cohort for Beverley and Holderness ²	1,180	1,260	1,220	1,170
Young Participation Rate (A) for Beverley and Holderness ³ (%)	33	30	31	31
Young Participation Rate (A) for England (%)	29.2	28.8	29.2	29.9
¹ Covers all students studying Higher Education Courses at UK Higher Education Institutions and other UK institutions, for example Further Education Colleges. ² Cohorts are reported to the nearest 10. ³ Young Participation Rates for constituencies are reported to the nearest percentage. Source: Higher Education Funding Council for England.

The total numbers of entrants from Beverley and Holderness for each year since 2001/02 are given in the table:

*Entrants to undergraduate courses* ¹ *from Beverley and Holderness*
	2001/02	2002/03	2003/04	2004/05
Aged 18	310	335	300	330
Aged 19	110	110	105	110
Aged over19²	865	810	715	870
Total entrants	1,290	1,260	1,125	1,310
¹ Covers all students studying Higher Education Courses at UK Higher Education Institutions only. Students studying Higher Education Courses elsewhere such as Further Education Colleges are excluded. ² Includes a very small number of students with unknown ages or ages under 18. Note: Figures are based on the HESA standard registration population for entrants and have been rounded to the nearest 5, so components may not sum to totals. Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

The Department uses the higher Education Initial Participation Rate (HEIPR) to assess progress on increasing first-time participation of English students aged 18-30 in higher education towards 50 per cent.: the latest provisional figure for 2004/05 is 42 per cent. The HEIPR is not calculated at constituency level.

Volume 454: debated on Wednesday 13 December 2006