HC Deb 07 January 2003 vol 397 cc121-2W
Mr. Boswell

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on participation rates broken down by socio-economic class of parents of higher education students in each year since 1990. [88328]

Margaret Hodge

The latest available information is shown in the table. The sharp rise in participation rates in the early 1990s reflects the expansion of the higher education sector during these years. There was an increase in entrant numbers in 1997 related partly to the funding arrangements for higher education, with students choosing to enter HE rather than wait until 1998. There was a corresponding reduction in 1998 before the entry rates started to increase again in 1999.

The Government are committed to raising the participation rates for people from less affluent family backgrounds, and has introduced Excellence Challenge, including the AimHigher campaign, which is targeted at raising attainment and aspirations among young people who traditionally would not consider going to university.

Participation1 in Higher Education by Social Class—Great Britain
Percentages
Academic year beginning:
Social class 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
I Professional n/a 55 71 73 78 80
II Intermediate IIIN Skilled non n/a 36 39 42 45 46
manual IIIM Skilled n/a 22 27 29 31 31
manual n/a 11 15 17 18 18
IV Partly skilled n/a 10 14 16 17 17
V Unskilled n/a 6 9 11 II 12
1–IIIN 37 35 40 43 46 47
IIIM-V 10 11 14 16 17 17
All classes 19 23 28 30 32 32

Academic year beginning
Social class 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
I Professional 82 79 72 73 76
II Intermediate 47 48 45 45 48
IIIN Skilled non manual 32 31 29 30 33
IIIM Skilled manual 18 19 18 18 19
IV Partly skilled 17 18 17 17 19
V Unskilled 13 14 13 13 14
I-IIIN 48 48 45 45 48
IIIM-V 18 18 17 17 18
All classes 33 33 31 32 33

n/a = not available

I Measured by the Age Participation Index (API), which is defined as the number of UK domiciled under 21 initial entrants to full-time and sandwich undergraduate courses expressed as a proportion of the averaged 18–19 year old population.

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