Medr/2024/09: Higher Education Students Early Statistics Survey 2024/25

Introduction

1. This publication requests higher education institutions and further education institutions with higher education provision (known collectively as higher education (HE) providers) that are funded directly by Medr for HE provision to return aggregated student data to enable Medr to:
a). Have early indications of the number of students in the academic year 2024/25;
b). Monitor recruitment of full-time (FT) undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) students covered by the fee and access plans;
c). Fund and monitor degree apprenticeship provision under the Medr degree apprenticeship scheme.

Note that this request does not include the six new subscribers to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) who have specifically designated HE course provision.

Main changes for 2024/25

2. The main changes made since the HESES 2023 survey are:
a). The survey dates are earlier than the 2023/24 survey and are more in line with previous surveys;
b). Tables 2a to 2c are no longer collected. Consequently, the table labelled Table 3 in 2023/24 is now labelled Table 2;
c). The maximum fee limits for full-time undergraduate and PGCE courses have been updated. See Annex F;
d). Annex K (previously labelled Annex J) has been updated to reflect the mapping that is being used in the extraction of data for end of year monitoring for 2023/24;
e). An additional table is being requested, Table 3, which collects information relating to degree apprenticeships. The information collected will be used to calculate funding for and monitor degree apprenticeship provision funded under the Medr scheme. The inclusion of this table was consulted upon in Medr publication, Medr/2024/02: Higher Education Students Early Statistics – consultation on changes for 2024/25 collection of Degree Apprenticeship in-year data. There was support to use the HESES survey to collect this information. Annex I gives guidance relating to the return of degree apprenticeship data. Other annexes have been updated to reflect the inclusion of this new table and relabelled where appropriate. The responses and outcomes of the consultation can be found in Annex O.

Survey data

3. HE providers that are directly funded by Medr for their HE provision are requested to return numbers of HE students on Tables 1 and 2. These are students registered on prescribed HE courses leading to recognised HE qualifications (see Annex B). HE providers that have degree apprenticeships funded under the Medr scheme (previously the HEFCW scheme) are requested to return numbers of students and credit values related to those apprenticeships on Table 3.

Contents

4. This circular provides:
a). Guidance and definitions for the various categories used to classify students;
b). Rules for counting registrations;
c). Rules for counting credit values for degree apprenticeships; 
d). Details of the criteria we will use to extract data from the HESA student record for end of year monitoring and to get information collected on previous HESES surveys;
e). Copies of the survey tables which will be distributed in Excel workbooks for providers to complete and return.

5. The contents of the annexes are as follows:

Annex		Page number
Annex A	Summary guide to the HESES 2024/25 survey	5
Annex B	Definition of a recognised HE qualification	14
Annex C	Distance learning, campuses, subsidiaries, franchises and other collaborative arrangements	15
Annex D	Definition of residential and funding status	22
Annex E	Definition of ASCs	26
Annex F	Definition of mode of study	28
Annex G	Definition of level of study	31
Annex H	Rules for counting registrations	33
Annex I	Guidance for the return of degree apprenticeship data	42
Annex J	Table and column descriptions	48
Annex K	HESA/HESES mappings and end of year monitoring data extraction criteria	51
Annex L	Workbook notes	61
Annex M	Validation checks	63
Annex N	Usage of data by Medr	64
Annex O	Outcomes of degree apprenticeship consultation	65
Annex P	Funding status reference grid	69
Annex Q	Sample copies of tables for completion by all providers directly funded by Medr for HE provision	71

Return of data

6. Providers are required to notify Medr of student registrations for the whole year, apart from on Table 3, which collects student registrations for the whole year for continuing students, student registrations between 1 August 2024 and 1 November 2024 inclusive for new entrants, plus associated credit value data for entrants on or after 1 August 2022.

7. The completed degree apprenticeship table (Table 3) should be returned by email to Andrea Thomas at [email protected] no later than 18 December 2024. Completed workbooks for the whole survey, should be returned by email to Andrea Thomas at [email protected] no later than 30 January 2025.

8. Providers that do not have degree apprenticeship provision funded under the Medr scheme are not required to return Table 3 by 18 December 2024.

9. Providers are encouraged to begin to prepare their returns well before the return date so that only final adjustments need to be made before dispatch of the completed returns.

10. It is important that the whole survey return is made on time so that early indications of numbers of students for 2024/25 are available, and to ensure that Medr has sufficient time to complete the checking process prior to sending out verifications for sign off.

11. We request that providers let us know as soon as possible, and before the return dates of 18 December 2024 for degree apprenticeships information or 30 January 2025 for the whole survey, if they envisage that they will have difficulty returning the required information or if they will have difficulty meeting the timetable given in paragraph 12. This includes ensuring that the authorised signatory, or the alternative authorised signatory, is available to sign off the verifications by the due dates. Medr reserves the right to enter its own estimates of student registrations and credit values for providers which fail to return the survey or sign off the data on time, or where data are considered to be of insufficient quality.

12. When data are returned, we carry out a validation and credibility checking process. Once any subsequent queries have been resolved, data are sent out to authorised signatories at providers for verification. The process will follow the timetable outlined below.

Table 3:

18 December 2024	Return deadline
10 January 2025	Verifications sent to providers
24 January 2025	Verifications return deadline

All HESES tables:

30 January 2025	Return deadline
13 February 2025	Verifications sent to providers
5 March 2025	Verifications return deadline

13. In the event of a deadline being missed without prior agreement, we will contact the HESES data contact and/or authorised signatory to request an explanation. If a deadline is missed by more than three working days, without prior agreement, we will email the head of the provider, reminding them that Medr reserves the right to enter its own estimates of student registrations for providers which fail to return the survey on time and indicating that Medr intends to do this if immediate action is not taken. Failure to return the data or verification report within two working days of the email will result in a letter from the Chief Executive of Medr to the head of the provider stating the figures that will be used in place of the provider’s own data.

14. Signed verifications should be returned by emailing them to Andrea Thomas at [email protected]. Prior to returning the signed verifications to Medr, providers must have undertaken sufficient checks to be satisfied that the returned data are accurate. Data anomalies queried by Medr must have been corrected or, if genuine, must have an associated explanation. Any changes that are made to the verification before signing and returning, that are not already made to the Excel format, should also be submitted in an Excel format.

15. Each subsequent deadline should be met regardless of any delay in meeting the preceding deadline.

16. Data extracted and signed off as part of the 2023/24 Information Reporting Interface Service (IRIS) process^[1] when providers make a submission to HESA, will be used in funding allocations. Providers should note that the data extractions at IRIS may need to be supplemented with additional data extractions once the methods for teaching funding for 2025/26 are finalised. If this is the case, we will contact providers about the sign off process for any additional data needed, not already signed off as part of the IRIS data extraction process. Further details are provided in the 2023/24 EYM publication and the data requirements publication for 2024/25.

17. Providers are reminded that data returned to Medr on the HESES survey, including methods used to calculate any estimates included in the returned figures, may be subject to an external audit carried out by Medr or by contractors working on Medr’s behalf. The systems and processes used to generate HESES data are in the scope of providers’ internal audits.

Future developments

18. The Statistics and Data area of the Medr website provides information about data collection. If providers have suggestions of anything additional they would like to see included, they should contact Medr at [email protected].

Further information

19. Any queries should be directed to Andrea Thomas ([email protected]).

^[1] Medr website: Data and analysis