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Degrees: Gender

Volume 462: debated on Thursday 12 July 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what the non-completion rates were for (a) female full-time students studying for first degrees, (b) female part-time students and (c) male full-time students studying for first degrees, broken down by qualification on entry in the last period for which figures are available. (148121)

Projected non-completion rates are released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) each year within the Performance Indicators in Higher Education publication. The latest available non-completion projections are shown in table 1.

Table 1: Proportion of UK-domiciled entrants to full-time first degree courses in UK higher education institutions (HEIs) who are projected to neither obtain an award nor transfer to another institution

Academic year

Percentage

1999/2000

15.9

2000/01

15.0

2001/02

14.1

2002/03

14.4

2003/04

14.9

Source:

‘Performance Indicators in Higher Education’, published by HESA

The 2004-05 figure will be released by HESA on 19th July 2007. These non-completion rates are not available broken down by gender or entry qualification. Drop-out is more likely to occur during the first year of higher education. The performance indicators also include non-continuation rates, which show the proportion of entrants who are not detected in higher education after their first year. The latest available non-continuation rates are shown in table 2.

Table 2: Proportion of UK-domiciled young entrants to full-time first degree courses at UK HEIs not continuing in higher education after their first year

Academic year

Percentage

1999/2000

7.8

2000/01

7.1

2001/02

7.3

2002/03

7.8

2003/04

7.7

Source:

‘Performance Indicators in Higher Education’, published by HESA

The 2004-05 figure will be released by HESA on 19 July 2007. The 2002-03 and 2003-04 non-continuation rates are available broken down by entry qualification, as shown in table 3.

Table 3: Percentage of UK-domiciled young entrants to full-time first degrees in UK HEIs in 2002-03 and 2003-04 not continuing in higher education after their first year

Entry qualification Categories

Tariff points

Entrants 2002-03

Entrants 2003-04

A-levels or Highers:

Unknown

11.3

12.6

Up to 200

11.7

11.9

201 to 290

7.9

8.1

291 to 380

4.9

5.3

Above 380

2.6

2.8

Other qualifications

11.4

11.6

All qualifications

7.8

7.7

Source:

Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)

The 2003-04 non-continuation rate is available broken down by gender, as shown in table 4.

Table 4: Percentage of UK-domiciled young entrants to full-time first degrees in UK HEIs in 2003-04 not continuing in higher education after their first year

Rate

Benchmark

Female

6.7

7.3

Male

8.8

8.1

Total

7.7

Source:

Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)

Comparable projected non-completion rates and non-continuation rates after first year are not calculated for part time students.