Analysis of Participation in Post-16 Education and Training, 2007/08

The Participation in post-16 Education and Training bulletin provides data about national and regional participation by Welsh domiciled learners enrolled during the 2007/08 academic year.

In order to allow fair comparison between unitary authorities with different population characteristics this bulletin uses a measure of participation known as the “Standard Participation Rate”. The Standard Participation Rate (SPR) is a measure of how many post-16 learners there were from each local authority, compared to the number that might be expected to come from that authority based on the national average and the age and gender of people from that area. The higher the SPR the higher the level of participation in post-16 learning.

The key points from the bulletin are:

• There were significant geographic variations in post-16 participation in 2007/08.
• The unitary authorities with the highest overall post-16 learner standard participation rates were Flintshire, Denbighshire and Conwy. The unitary authorities with the lowest overall post-16 learner standard participation rates were Newport, Blaenau Gwent and Rhondda Cynon Taff.
• There was a noticeable fluctuation in the standard participation rate (SPR) of some unitary authorities when the Higher Education (HE) level learners were excluded from the analysis. For example, in Neath Port Talbot the below average participation at HE level resulted in a ten point rise in SPR when HE level learners were not included.
• Nationally the overall level of participation was higher in the female post-16 learner cohort than the male.
• The work-based learning cohort exhibited a large variation in participation between unitary authorities; much of this variation can be explained by historically diverse social and economic backgrounds.

Contact

Tel: 029 2092 6026
E-mail: post16ed.stats@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Next update

October 2010 (provisional - to be confirmed on the Due Out Soon page)