[Date Prev][Date Next][Date Index]

INKYFLASH: Extra student numbers announced



         ____            __               ____   __                    __  
        /  _/  ____     / /__   __  __   / __/  / /  ____ _   _____   / /_ 
        / /   / __ \   / //_/  / / / /  / /_   / /  / __ `/  / ___/  / __ \
      _/ /   / / / /  / ,<    / /_/ /  / __/  / /  / /_/ /  (__  )  / / / /
     /___/  /_/ /_/  /_/|_|   \__, /  /_/    /_/   \__,_/  /____/  /_/ /_/ 
                             /____/                                        
                                  
          FUNDING COUNCIL ANNOUNCES SHARE-OUT OF EXTRA FUNDED PLACES
  Lancaster's additional student numbers exceed most optimistic expectations
              (and bring enough new cash to fund our pay claim)
                        
 Issue 285a                                               Friday 9th April 1999
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
              Editorial correspondence to InkyText@lancaster.ac.uk
   Subscription requests to Inkytext-subscription-request@lists.lancs.ac.uk
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
                   
     HEFC(E) ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL STUDENT NUMBERS AND SHARES OUT EXTRA 75m 
         AN EXTRA 350 FTES (FULL-TIME EQUIVALENTS) FOR LANCASTER   
        Lancaster 'quality' bid exceptionally generously rewarded
       About 1.45million extra annual income if all new places filled
 
 The HE Funding Council for England last week announced the
distribution of additional student places. It had held back from total
block grants for 1999-2000 about 75m and invited bids for the increased
student numbers this sum would fund.
 
 Bids, in specific subject areas and fee bands, were to be based on two
different criteria: widening participation and 'quality' (a reward for
departments scoring highly in Teaching Quality).

 Lancaster has done exceptionally well under the second criterion.
HEFC(E) is understood to have advised most institutions NOT to bid
under this scheme, and in practice most of the extra places have gone
to institutions promising to 'widen partcipation' by admitting
categories of student under-represented in Higher Education.

 Lancaster has been awarded 350 extra places overall, mostly in the
Management and Applied Science areas. Only 100 of these places come
under the 'Widening Participation' scheme, the remainder being based on
teaching quality.

 If students can be recruited to fill all of these places we will
receive an extra 424K in fee income. The additional 1.037m in block
grant appears not even to be conditional on recruiting the requisite
number of students.

 Decisions will be required on how much extra expenditure accepting the
new students will entail. In theory some of them are marginal extra
numbers that should require minimal additional outlay on staffing
costs.

 The new money will greatly ease any ongoing cash-flow difficulties and
would, for example, make it easier for local management to cope with a
pay rise of the order of 4-4.5 percent.

 Lancaster's extra numbers break down as follows:

 Widening Participation                             Quality  

 20 Band C ugs                                   130 Band D ugs
 60 Band B ugs                                    20 Band C ugs 
 10 Band D pgts (part time)                       80 Band B ugs
 10 Band B pgts (part time)                       20 Band D pgts 

 The Bands refer to student funding levels and range from D (arts and
business) to B (applied science). [Band A is clinical medicine, not
represented at Lancaster.]
 
 Big winners in the exercise were the Open University, which is to get
an extra 2000 places to encourage the admission of students without
formal qualifications. Other big winners include:

 Sheffield Hallam		962	
 Nottingham			930
 Bath				928
 York				623
 Hull				614
 Luton 				563
 Central Lancs			523
 Plymouth			518
 Birmingham			414	
 Liverpool Hope			425
 London Institute		328  
 Sheffield 			305	
 Newcastle			304
 Liverpool John Moore's		300
 Wigan and Leigh		300
 Cheltenham			270
 St Martin's			264

 A full list has not yet been published.

 ENDS