Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps the Office for Students is taking to improve survey response rates to questions relating to the destinations of international students graduating from higher education institutions in England.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Action 6 of the International Education Strategy 2021 update focuses on the employability of international students. Sector representatives are collaborating to build an understanding of the UK’s skills needs, international labour markets, and barriers to international graduate employability. They will also share examples of best practice across the sector.
The department supports these efforts by expanding data resources available in relation to international student graduate outcomes. My noble Friend will be aware from recent answers to Questions HL5793 and HL5795 that the department now publishes employment and study outcomes one, three, five, and ten years after graduation for all international students who remain in the UK after study and contribute to the UK economy.
Graduate outcomes surveys are carried out by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). This includes international graduates surveys. In response to my right hon. Friend, the Minister for Higher and Further Education’s announcements on reducing bureaucracy for the higher education sector in September 2020 and lowering the cost to providers of participating in HESA data collections, there has been some scaling back of HESA’s graduate outcomes survey methodology. This impacts 2020/21 academic year graduates. The survey will be published in spring 2023.
Non-EU international graduates will continue to participate in the survey. The process of contacting international graduates by telephone, if they have not already participated online, is discontinued. This has resulted in a lowering of the subscription cost of graduate outcomes to higher education providers by approximately £350,000. HESA continues to explore and implement strategies aimed at increasing online response rates.
The value of the HESA graduate outcomes survey data is not solely determined by its response rates. The current response rate target for the survey of international graduates is at 20%. This is high for social surveys. Over the last three years, the survey has achieved on average a 30% response rate for this group. This is 5 percentage points above the previous target. Around half of these responses were collected over the telephone.
Conclusions drawn on the international graduate outcomes will be driven by how representative the students who respond to the survey are of the overall student population. The Office for Students intends to undertake research looking at the outcomes for international students. It will re-introduce telephone contact, should it significantly impact the conclusions that can be drawn from the data.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the (1) quality, and (2) accessibility, of industry placements offered by T-Levels providers.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department is committed to ensuring students have access to high quality industry placements and have provided an extensive programme of employer and provider support to help with the delivery and scale up of placements. We have invested £200 million over the past four years to help providers build their capacity and networks with employers to deliver high quality placements and we have published practical industry placement delivery guidance for both education providers and employers. We also have comprehensive packages of support in place for both providers and employers, which offer them tailored advice and hands-on support to deliver high-quality placements.
To ensure access to placements, we have implemented several different delivery models to ensure placements are accessible and meaningful for all students, across all industries and locations. We are also engaging directly with employers through the department’s employer engagement teams to provide a strong pipeline of employers for the future, across all sectors and across the country, ready to offer placements. We have established a T Level employer ambassador network to engage with others in their industries on T Levels and placements, and our communications campaigns are continuing to raise the profile of T Levels and industry placements to an employer audience.
We will continue to monitor placement provision and work closely with providers and employers to identify any potential barriers to the delivery of placements for each of the T Levels, including access, and identify appropriate mitigations.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to build confidence in the (1) longevity, and (2) value, of applied general qualifications.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department will continue to fund a range of qualifications similar to current applied general qualifications. These can be taken alongside and as alternatives to A levels where they are necessary, high-quality and support progression to higher education. Through the post-16 qualifications review, these qualifications will need to meet new quality criteria to ensure they are well-designed and have strong progression value to be funded in future. This means that students, employers, and universities can have confidence in their value.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion of students undertaking T-Levels are gaining at least 315 hours of ‘on-the-job’ experience during an industry placement.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
We are committed to ensuring every T Level student completes a high-quality industry placement, which involves genuine and meaningful experience working with employers.
We are monitoring the delivery of T Level industry placements to make sure that the first two cohorts of T Level students have a full placement secured but we are currently not collecting, nor planning to collect, data on what proportion of placement hours students are spending in a workplace setting. We have introduced some temporary industry placement flexibilities for the first two cohorts of T Level students in direct response to the delivery challenges caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. This will ensure that students can successfully complete their industry placement and therefore pass their T Level. This includes allowing some of the placement hours to be delivered remotely. We have been clear that these flexibilities are to be used by exception only, that they are temporary and that the provision of in-person placements remains the expectation.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many qualifications have been (1) received, and (2) approved, since 1 September 2020 under Exemption type 3: Qualifications in response to economic need.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The moratorium on approving new qualifications at level 3 and below for public funding for students aged 16 and over in England was introduced in September 2020. It was introduced for a period of three years, subject to annual review, and is intended to stabilise the publicly funded qualifications offer before wider reform is implemented. There are two exemptions to the moratorium. These are for qualifications developed in response to economic need and where qualification content has been updated to keep it relevant.
Qualifications which meet these two exemption criteria continue to be approved for funding. The Education, Skills and Funding Agency is due to confirm ongoing arrangements linked to the moratorium in March 2022.
The current moratorium is not intended to constrain the design or delivery of new qualifications where they meet the exemption criteria. The moratorium exemption criteria allow awarding organisations to design qualifications in response to two situations. The first is employer need, for instance in response to regional skills need or a new job role. The second is to meet learner need, for instance ensuring the content of the qualification the student is undertaking remains relevant and current.
These criteria should not prohibit awarding organisations in being innovative in how they design qualifications to meet new skills needs or update their qualifications to ensure students are undertaking relevant content. The current moratorium allows awarding organisations to submit a new qualification for funding approval where it has been designed in response to economic need (this is known as a type 3 exemption). Qualifications submitted under this exemption may be approved where appropriate evidence of economic need is submitted, and the qualification meets all other approval criteria.
Since the start of the moratorium, 40 qualifications have been submitted under the exemption type 3 criteria and 16 have been approved.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of effect of the moratorium on the consideration of new qualifications for funding approval on (1) innovation in the provision of (a) technical, and (b) vocational qualifications, and (2) the ability of awarding organisations to adapt to the needs of (i) learners, and (ii) employers.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The moratorium on approving new qualifications at level 3 and below for public funding for students aged 16 and over in England was introduced in September 2020. It was introduced for a period of three years, subject to annual review, and is intended to stabilise the publicly funded qualifications offer before wider reform is implemented. There are two exemptions to the moratorium. These are for qualifications developed in response to economic need and where qualification content has been updated to keep it relevant.
Qualifications which meet these two exemption criteria continue to be approved for funding. The Education, Skills and Funding Agency is due to confirm ongoing arrangements linked to the moratorium in March 2022.
The current moratorium is not intended to constrain the design or delivery of new qualifications where they meet the exemption criteria. The moratorium exemption criteria allow awarding organisations to design qualifications in response to two situations. The first is employer need, for instance in response to regional skills need or a new job role. The second is to meet learner need, for instance ensuring the content of the qualification the student is undertaking remains relevant and current.
These criteria should not prohibit awarding organisations in being innovative in how they design qualifications to meet new skills needs or update their qualifications to ensure students are undertaking relevant content. The current moratorium allows awarding organisations to submit a new qualification for funding approval where it has been designed in response to economic need (this is known as a type 3 exemption). Qualifications submitted under this exemption may be approved where appropriate evidence of economic need is submitted, and the qualification meets all other approval criteria.
Since the start of the moratorium, 40 qualifications have been submitted under the exemption type 3 criteria and 16 have been approved.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to end the moratorium on the consideration of new qualifications for funding approval; and if so, when.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The moratorium on approving new qualifications at level 3 and below for public funding for students aged 16 and over in England was introduced in September 2020. It was introduced for a period of three years, subject to annual review, and is intended to stabilise the publicly funded qualifications offer before wider reform is implemented. There are two exemptions to the moratorium. These are for qualifications developed in response to economic need and where qualification content has been updated to keep it relevant.
Qualifications which meet these two exemption criteria continue to be approved for funding. The Education, Skills and Funding Agency is due to confirm ongoing arrangements linked to the moratorium in March 2022.
The current moratorium is not intended to constrain the design or delivery of new qualifications where they meet the exemption criteria. The moratorium exemption criteria allow awarding organisations to design qualifications in response to two situations. The first is employer need, for instance in response to regional skills need or a new job role. The second is to meet learner need, for instance ensuring the content of the qualification the student is undertaking remains relevant and current.
These criteria should not prohibit awarding organisations in being innovative in how they design qualifications to meet new skills needs or update their qualifications to ensure students are undertaking relevant content. The current moratorium allows awarding organisations to submit a new qualification for funding approval where it has been designed in response to economic need (this is known as a type 3 exemption). Qualifications submitted under this exemption may be approved where appropriate evidence of economic need is submitted, and the qualification meets all other approval criteria.
Since the start of the moratorium, 40 qualifications have been submitted under the exemption type 3 criteria and 16 have been approved.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many, and (2) what proportion, of international students have chosen to stay in the UK after their studies in each of the last 10 years; and what was the breakdown of students by nationality for each year.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department publishes data about international graduates from English higher education (HE) providers and colleges who remain in the UK for employment or study one, three, five and ten years after graduating from a first degree in its annual Graduate Outcomes (LEO)[1] publication. Latest available data for international first degree graduates refer to outcomes in the 2018-19 financial year and are published in Table 45 here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/graduate-outcomes-leo/2018-19.
Table 1 in the attached spreadsheet summarises the outcomes of international first degree graduates from English HE providers and colleges one year after graduation for the past five tax years. Data is only published for financial year 2014-15 onwards.
The department also publishes employment outcomes and earnings for international postgraduates from English HE institutions in the LEO: Postgraduate outcomes[2] publication. Table 2 in the attached spreadsheet summarises the outcomes of international level 7 (taught and research) and level 8 postgraduates of English HE institutions, one year after graduation for the past five tax years. Data is only published for financial year 2014-15 onwards.
In the attachment, minor methodological adjustments were made to the published LEO percentage outcome calculations so that graduates in sustained employment, further study or both in the UK are given as a proportion of all graduates (published LEO calculations exclude those identified by the Department for Work and Pensions records as overseas from the denominator).
The publications also include breakdowns of graduates by country but focus on the 20 countries with the highest number of graduates in the 2016/17 academic year. These are available in Table 53 and Table 25 of the respective publications.
Another important data source that measures the outcomes of graduates from the UK HE system is the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s Graduate Outcomes survey. This includes supplementary information about graduate outcomes, such as details of their employment destinations. Further information about the survey is available here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/graduates.
[1] https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/graduate-outcomes-leo/2018-19.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the employment outcomes of international students who have completed their higher education studies at UK institutions.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department publishes data about international graduates from English higher education providers and colleges who remain in the UK for employment or study one, three, five and ten years after graduating from a first degree in its annual Graduate Outcomes (LEO) publication. Latest available data refer to outcomes in the 2018-19 tax year and are published here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/graduate-outcomes-leo/2018-19.
The department also publishes employment outcomes and earnings for international postgraduates from English higher education institutions in the Graduate Outcomes (LEO): Postgraduate outcomes publication. Latest available data refer to outcomes in the 2018-19 tax year and are published here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/graduate-outcomes-leo-postgraduate-outcomes.
Another important data source that measures the outcomes of graduates from the UK higher education system is the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s Graduate Outcomes survey. This data gives a more rounded picture of graduate destinations than LEO data as it includes those employed or studying overseas. Further information about that survey is available here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/graduates.