To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many of the 10,000 additional places on science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses announced by his Department on 20 July 2009 will be taken up at each higher education institution at the start of the academic year 2009-10. (291632)

On 23 July we announced that student support would be made available for 10,000 additional places on science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses.

The 10,000 places were allocated to institutions by HEFCE according to their share of full-time undergraduates that entered in 2007-08 to priority subjects identified by Government. Where institutions indicated to HEFCE that they were unable to take up their share of places they were redistributed pro-rata across the sector.

More details on the final allocation of the 10,000 additional places are available on the HEFCE website at the following link:

http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/circlets/2009/c117_09/