HC Deb 13 February 2004 vol 418 cc179-80W
Chris Grayling

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what estimate he has made of the number of places in(a) further and (b) higher education provided to (i) asylum seekers and (ii) their children in the last year for which figures were available. [143647]

Alan Johnson

The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) estimate that about 41,000 asylum seekers participated in LSC funded further education in 2001/02. It is not possible to identify how many learners were children of asylum seekers.

Data collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) covering students on higher education courses does not separately identify asylum seekers.