Whether it will provide a breakdown of the age participation index in higher education by National Statistics-Socio Economic Classification…

Information identifying the National Statistics-Socio Economic Classification (NS-SEC) class of entrants to higher education is not available for all entrants included in the Age Participation Index (API), in particular this information is not available for entrants to Scottish Colleges. It is reasonable to expect that college entrants would be more likely, on average, to be classed at the lower end of the
NS-SEC (classes 4 to 7) and so analysis on only entrants to Scottish higher education institutions would be expected to be skewed towards higher classes in the NS-SEC (classes 1 to 3) and is therefore likely to misrepresent the true picture of participation among those from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds.
Analysis by entrants from deprived areas and analysis of entrants from NS-SEC classes are both commonly used as a measure of participation by those from relatively socially disadvantaged backgrounds. The most recent API (relating to academic year 2008-09) was calculated for those entrants from the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland, according to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). The following table is an extract from the most recent update of the API, the full publication can be accessed at the following internet address, http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/08/25161104/0. The full publication includes additional analysis of entrants from deprived areas by local authority.
For more detail on the use SIMD in the calculation of the API can found in the methodological note within the publication, or accessed online at the following address,
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Lifelong-learning/APImethod.
The next update of the API will be released by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) on 28 July 2011, with updated time-series to included 2009-10 figures. This publication will be available from the SFC’s statistics website (http://www.sfc.ac.uk/statistics/statistics.aspx).
Deprived areas Age Participation Index for Scotland: 2001-02 to 2008-09
Year
Number of Entrants
API
Deprived Areas
Non-Deprived Areas
2001-02
29,310
43.9
26.0
48.5
2002-03
28,655
43.9
23.3
50.0
2003-04
28,485
41.0
22.8
46.0
2004-05
27,825
40.4
23.3
45.0
2005-06
28,450
42.2
23.4
47.4
2006-07
27,830
43.3
23.4
48.9
2007-08
27,055
42.0
23.4
47.1
2008-09
28,415
42.8
24.8
47.6
Sources: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS).
Note: The calculation of participation rates for deprived areas relies on a process of matching postcodes contained in student records to those in postcode directories and further matching of postcodes to datazones contained within the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).
Student records containing incomplete/invalid postcodes are excluded from this calculation, as are those with valid postcodes that cannot be matched to the SIMD.
The "total" figure from this deprived areas age participation index is therefore not an exact match to the figures shown in the Age Participation Index (API) for Scotland.
Overall this index is 0.2 percentage points lower than the API for Scotland for the same year.
In 2008-09, 99.6 per cent of entrant records were successfully matched to postcode directories, and to the SIMD, used for analysis by deprived areas.