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Dept for Education and Skills

Answer

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of people aged under 25 years from each socio-economic group participated in higher education in each of the last 12 years. [65793] Margaret Hodge: Information is not available exactly as requested. The available information relates to the social class breakdown of the Age Participation Index (API) from 1990 to 2000, and is shown in the table. The API is defined as the number of UK domiciled under 21 initial entrants to full-time and sandwich courses expressed as a proportion of the averaged 18 to 19-year-old population. The sharp rise in participation rates in the early 1990s reflects the expansion of the higher education sector during these years. There was an increase in entrant numbers in 1997 related partly to the funding arrangements for higher education, with students choosing to enter HE rather than wait until 1998. There was a corresponding reduction in 1998 before the entry rates started to increase again in 1999. The Government are committed to raising the participation rates for people from less affluent family backgrounds, and has introduced Excellence Challenge, including the AimHigher campaign, which is targeted at raising attainment and aspirations among young people who traditionally would not consider going to university. Participation in higher education by social class Percentage _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Academic year beginning: Social 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 class I --{1} 55 71 73 78 80 82 79 72 73 76 Professiona l II --{1} 36 39 42 45 46 47 48 45 45 48 Intermediat e IIIN --{1} 22 27 29 31 31 32 31 29 30 33 Skilled non manual IIIM --{1} 11 15 17 18 18 18 19 18 18 19 Skilled manual IV Partly --{1} 10 14 16 17 17 17 18 17 17 19 skilled V Unskilled --{1} 6 9 11 11 12 13 14 13 13 14 I to IIIN 37 35 40 43 46 47 48 48 45 45 48 IIIM to V 10 11 14 16 17 17 18 18 17 17 18 All classes 19 23 28 30 32 32 33 33 31 32 33 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. {1} Not available.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

388 c718-20W;388 c721-2W; 65793

Session

2001-02

Subjects

Higher education Students Student numbers Social class

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk