Written question asked by Lynne Jones (Labour) on Wednesday, 9 February 2000, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 16 February 2000. It was answered by Malcolm Wicks (Labour) on Wednesday, 16 February 2000 on behalf of the Department for Education and Employment.

Dept for Education and Employment

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, what data he has collated on the number of people participating in higher education, broken down by socio-economic group, in each of the last three years. - Table given.

Answer: Dr. Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what data he has collated on the number of people participating in higher education, broken down by socio-economic group, in each of the last three years. [109980] Mr. Wicks: Figures for the number of acceptances by social class are given in the table. Home domiciled accepted applicants to full-time and sandwich {1} undergraduate courses in the United Kingdom through the Universities and Colleges Admission System (UCAS) by social class {2} 1997 to 1999 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Year of entry 1997 1998 1999 A Professional 39,644 38,510 38,864 B Intermediate 117,360 115,615 115,667 C1 Skilled non-manual 44,804 44,207 44,474 C2 Skilled manual 37,333 35,610 36,286 D Partly skilled 23,507 22,692 23,097 E Unskilled 5,620 5,329 5,538 Not known 35,050 36,257 39,139 Total 303,318 298,220 303,065 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. {1} UCAS collect data on full-time and sandwich courses only, therefore no information on part-time acceptances is available. {2} For students aged under 21, the social class is that of their parents, for those aged 21 and over the social class is that of the student.

Secondary information