Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the number of mature students studying in higher education institutions; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Higher Education Statistics Agency collects and publishes statistics on students studying at UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The latest statistics refer to the academic year 2016/17 and can be found at the following link: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/11-01-2018/sfr247-higher-education-student-statistics.
Studying later in life can bring enormous benefits for individuals, the economy and employers. While people most commonly enter higher education before the age of 21, a fifth of those studying in HEIs in England are aged over 30, showing that many people are able to use higher education to retrain or improve their skills later on in their careers.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people aged over 21 are (a) encouraged and (b) supported to access higher education in the UK.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Studying later in life can bring enormous benefits for individuals, the economy and employers.
Many mature students choose to study part-time. The government introduced up-front fee loans for eligible part-time students in 2012/13 to meet the full costs of their tuition. We are further enhancing the student finance package for part-time students by introducing maintenance loans, equivalent to full-time, in 2018/19. We also intend to extend the part-time maintenance loan to eligible students studying distance learning courses in 2019/20, subject to the development of a robust control regime to manage the particular risks and challenges associated with this mode of study.
Evidence shows that accelerated courses appeal particularly to mature students who want to retrain and enter the workplace more quickly than a traditional course would permit. We legislated in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to allow a specific fee cap to be set for accelerated degrees, removing a key barrier to their wider availability. We recently completed a public consultation about the provision of accelerated degree courses, and will respond later this year.
In our first guidance to the Office for Students (OfS), which sets out our priorities for access and participation plans for 2019/20, we asked the OfS to encourage higher education providers to consider the recruitment and support of mature learners.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Written Ministerial Statement of 6 December 2010, Col 7WS, what consideration her Department has given to the articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child when making new policy and legislation since May 2015.
Answered by Edward Timpson
On 17 October I laid a Written Ministerial Statement before this House reaffirming the Government’s commitment to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It stated that both the UNCRC articles and the Committee’s recent Concluding Recommendations serve as a helpful and important guide to making sure that our policies – whether they hold direct or indirect consequences – consider children.
It is very important that we analyse the impact of polices in relation to particular groups: this is a fundamental part of good policy-making. This is done in a range of ways, particularly through engagement with civil society and professionals. In addition, Cabinet Office guidance encourages all government departments to consider, and set out in summary, the anticipated effects of legislation on children and on the compatibility of draft legislation with the UNCRC. This guidance can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/450239/Guide_to_Making_Legislation.pdf
In the Department for Education, impact on children and families is a core consideration when developing policy. This is reflected in reforms since May 2015, such as the Childcare Act (2016) and the Education and Adoption Act (2016). This last reflects, for example: CRC Article 2 on non-discrimination; Article 3 on best interests of the child; Article 28 –on a child’s right to education; Article 20 on children deprived of family environment; and Article 21 on adoption. Impact assessments are regularly undertaken by the Department for Education where children are directly affected by proposed changes. Most recently, on 18 May, the government introduced the Children and Social Work Bill. At that time the Department published an in-depth child rights impact assessment of the Bill’s contents. Secondary legislation will similarly be scrutinised against the CRC.