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Students

Volume 456: debated on Tuesday 6 February 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many (a) part-time and (b) full-time students undertook higher education programmes funded by (i) the Higher Education Funding Council for England and (ii) the Learning and Skills Council in further education colleges in each academic year between 1996-97 and 2006-07. (111317)

The latest available information is given in the table. Comparable figures for earlier years are not available.

Higher education students enrolled at further education colleges in England1,2,3

Full-time

Part-time

Total

Funded by Higher Education Funding Council for England

2000/01

55,943

59,097

115,040

2001/02

54,813

59,000

113,813

2002/03

50,151

55,636

105,787

2003/04

49,170

54,681

103,851

2004/05

48,628

52,113

100,741

2005/06

48,483

49,004

97,487

2006/07

50,940

53,813

104,753

Funded by Learning and Skills Council4

2001/02

2002/03

12,005

57,337

69,342

2003/04

10,176

63,812

73,988

2004/05

8,657

62,784

71,441

2005/06

6,733

60,328

67,061

1 All student numbers are headcounts and include some students who were forecast not to complete their studies. The figures include both directly funded and indirectly funded students. Indirectly funded students are those who are: registered at member colleges of HEFCE-recognised funding consortia; franchised from an FE colleges to another FE college, as well as those franchised from an HEI to an FE college; and “partially” franchised to an FE college. Comparable figures for indirectly funded students are not available prior to 2000/01. 2 Full-time includes students on a sandwich year out. 3 The figures have not been adjusted for colleges that transferred during this period from the FE to the HE sector, or for those which merged with HE institutions, and which therefore account for some of the year-on-year reductions. 4 The figures cover students undertaking courses at level 4 or above at further education colleges only. Students on work-based learning courses cannot be disaggregated by mode of study and have therefore been excluded from the figures. Comparable figures for earlier years broken down by full-time/part-time are not available. Source: Higher Education Funding Council for England, and Learning and Skills Council.