§ Mrs. Iris RobinsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many(a) Protestant, (b) Roman Catholic and (c) other students domiciled in Northern Ireland commenced university courses in (i) Northern Ireland and (ii) Great Britain in each of the last 10 years. [187812]
§ Mr. GardinerInformation on students enrolled at higher education institutions is collected and provided to the Department for Employment and Learning by the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Religion is only recorded for NI domiciled students enrolled at NI higher education institutions. The religion of students enrolled at higher education institutions in GB is not collected.
1492WReligion was first collected in the 1995/96 academic year and the latest information available relates to the 2002/03 academic year. The breakdown of religion for the NI institutions is shown in the table.
NI domiciled first-year students enrolled on courses at Northern Ireland higher education institutions by religion 1994/95 to 2002/03 Academic year Protestant Roman Catholic Other Not known/unavailable Total 1995/96 995 1,155 73 11,537 13,760 1996/97 925 1,124 54 9,984 12,087 1997/98 3,389 4,528 315 6,497 14,729 1998/99 3,563 4,774 399 6,650 15,386 1999/2000 3,724 5,241 412 5,708 15,085 2000/01 4,62 6,634 509 5,608 17,378 2001/02 4,564 6,148 470 7,116 18,298 2002/03 5,720 7,564 663 4,806 18,753 Figures for 1995/96 to 1999/2000 relate to a snapshot of enrolments at 1 December in the relevant academic year and figures for 2000/01 to 2002/03 relate to a full-year count.