PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Students: North East (20 October 2015)

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of university entry rates by (a) gender and (b) social background for students from (i) the North East, (ii) Houghton and Sunderland South constituency and (iii) Sunderland local authority area in 2014-15.

Asked by:
Bridget Phillipson (Labour)

The table shows information held by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on university entry rates, using Free School Meals as an indicator of socio-economic background. Information is not available for 2014-15 or at parliamentary constituency level from this source.

Estimated percentage of pupils from state-funded schools aged 15 in 2008/09 by Free School Meal status and gender who entered Higher Education by age 19 in 2012/13 [1]

	Female		Male
	FSM	Non-FSM	FSM	Non-FSM
North East	16%	42%	14%	34%
Sunderland	15%	38%	13%	32%

Source: Matched data from the DfE National Pupil Database, HESA Student Record and SFA ILR

[1] Covers those who entered Higher Education in Higher Education Institutions in the UK and Further Education Colleges in England. Sunderland refers to the Sunderland local authority area.

The UCAS End of Cycle report has information on 18 year old entry rates by parliamentary constituency and gender, but not by social background below national level.

https://www.ucas.com/corporate/data-and-analysis/ucas-undergraduate-releases/ucas-undergraduate-analysis-reports/ucas

HEFCE has published information at constituency level, though not broken down by gender and social background, for 2011/12, available at the following link.

http://www.hefce.ac.uk/analysis/yp/trendsyp/pment/

Answered by:
Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative)
29 October 2015