§ Mr. WillisTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will publish figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency showing the numbers of part-time and full-time mature students who entered higher education in (i) 1996, (ii) 1997 and (iii) 1998. [83590]
§ Mr. MudieInformation for the three years requested is given in the table.
Mature1 entrants to UK higher education institutions Year Full-time Part-time Total 1996–97 172,100 226,000 398,100 1997–98 170,400 230,800 401,200 1998–99 168,700 250,100 418,700 1Mature entrants are defined as students in their first year of study aged 25 and over on postgraduate courses and aged 21 and over on undergraduate courses. The numbers cover home and overseas domiciled students and are taken from HESA December Student Record datasets. Note:
Comparisons between 1997–98 and 1998–99 are affected by a change in the basis for identifying first year students used by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Adjusting for this change gives a growth rate of -4 per cent. in full-time entrants (rather than -1 per cent. suggested by the unadjusted numbers) and +5 per cent. in part-time (rather than +8 per cent. suggested by the unadjusted numbers).
The figures show that the numbers of mature students have increased since the introduction of tuition fees. The tendency for more mature students to opt for part-time rather than full-time study began before tuition fees were introduced for all categories of student and has continued since.