Statistical quality

Recent fluctuations in Welsh medium enrolments are largely due to changes in provision of ‘bite sized’ courses at University of Wales Trinity St David. These courses were only reported via HESA for the first time in 2015/16 and Welsh medium enrolments were previously under reported for 2013/14 and 2014/15 at UWTSD. Due to lack of staff, funding and resources some of these modules were unavailable for 2016/17.
Welsh medium enrolments were under reported for 2013/14 and 2014/15 at UWTSD due to differences in reporting systems at newly merged institutions.
From 2010/11, Further Education (FE) students who were enrolled at Merthyr Tydfil College, Glamorgan were reported to HESA rather than solely to the Lifelong Learning Wales Record (LLWR). In 2009/10 only 950 FE enrolments were registered at Merthyr Tydfil College (as part of Glamorgan University), whilst in 2011/12 the number of FE enrolments was 8,580. The new protocol affecting 2012/13 data meant that the number of these enrolments fell again to 1,850 in 2012/13.
University of Wales Institute, Cardiff changed its name to Cardiff Metropolitan University in late 2011.
In 2009/10, the University of Glamorgan changed its reporting practices for a number of their full-time postgraduate taught students that were active over two reporting years. These students were previously returned as active in their first year but dormant in their second year. For 2009/10 these students are now returned as active in both academic years, in line with HESA reporting requirements. This contributed to Glamorgan reporting an increase of 670 enrolments (around 58 per cent) to its full-time postgraduate taught courses and a subsequent rise in the number of full-time postgraduate enrolments at Welsh HEIs.
In 2008/09, Lampeter University showed a drop of 2,195 part-time other undergraduate enrolments, representing a 39 per cent decrease on 2007/08. This was, in part, due to those students being re-coded as dormant which automatically excluded them from enrolment data.
During 2009/10, Bangor University took part in a trial with an external partner in relation to a large set of their Welsh for Adults data (Further Education enrolments normally included on the HESA record). Due to the nature of the trial, some data was not available before the HESA submission deadline, this resulted in an undercount for that year. In 2011/12 Bangor University recorded a 112 per cent increase in FE enrolments since 2009/10; currently there is no reason to suggest that this is due to anything other than full reporting and increased provision.

Weblinks

http://gov.wales/statistics-and-research/welsh-higher-education-institutions/?lang=en

Title

Students in Wales with teaching through the medium of Welsh

Last update

30 July 2020 30 July 2020

Next update

July 2021

Publishing organisation

Welsh Government

Source 1

Higher education student record, Higher Education Statistics Agency

Languages covered

English and Welsh

Data licensing

You may use and re-use this data free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government License - see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence

General description

Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) Student Record.
Contact: Post16Ed.stats@gov.wales

This data provides information on students taught through the medium of Welsh at Higher Education Institutions in Wales.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collect data on students, staff and resources of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK. The data presented in this table is taken from HESA's Student Record which contains information on all students enrolled on credit bearing courses at UK HEIs. Further information about HESA and their data collections can be found on their website www.hesa.ac.uk

The Student Record contains information about individual enrolments, which, because a student can be enrolled on more than one programme of study, will exceed the number of students. However, previous analysis has shown that for Welsh HEIs full-time enrolments are less than 1 per cent higher than full-time student numbers; part-time enrolments are less than 2 per cent higher than part-time student numbers.
Postdoctoral students are not included in the HESA Student Record.

Students being taught through the medium of Welsh are defined as students studying at least one module with a non-zero proportion of teaching through the medium of Welsh. See dimension notes for more detail.

Rounding strategy

The presentation of figures in this table follows the HESA rounding strategy. The strategy is intended to prevent the disclosure of personal information about any individual. This strategy involves rounding all numbers to the nearest 5. A summary of this strategy is as follows:
- 0, 1, 2 are rounded to 0 and represented as *.
- All other numbers are rounded to the nearest 5

Total figures are also subject to this rounding methodology; the consequence of which is that the sum of numbers in each row or column may not match the total shown precisely.

Data collection and calculation

Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) Student Record.
Contact: post16ed.stats@gov.wales

Welsh medium subjects data is calculated on a module by module basis. A student can study modules in multiple subjects, and even multiple subjects within a single module. Any combination of subjects and modules might have some teaching through Welsh. This means it is not possible to report subject numbers in a way which is consistent with the Welsh-medium totals elsewhere and where the percentage of students studying a subject through Welsh is accurate. We have chosen to make the percentages accurate.
Subjects reported in Full-Person Equivalents (FPE), split each student across the subjects they study. If a student’s course was half Maths and half Law, they would count as half a student (0.5) studying Maths and half a student studying Law. Once a student’s subjects are calculated in Full-Person Equivalents, we check if any part of a subject was studied Welsh. This means if half a student’s course is Maths (0.5 FPE), and they study some Maths through the Welsh-medium, then they also count as half a student studying Maths through Welsh (0.5 FPE).

Frequency of publication

Annual

Data reference periods

The HESA standard registration population is a count of all enrolments within the reporting year 1 August to 31 July. Students who leave within 2 weeks of their start date, or anniversary of their start date, and are on a course of more than two weeks duration, are not included in the standard registration population. Dormant students, incoming visiting and exchange students from overseas and students studying for the whole of their programme of study outside of the UK are also excluded from this population.

Rounding applied

The presentation of figures in this table follows the principals of the HESA rounding strategy. The strategy is intended to prevent the disclosure of personal information about any individual. This strategy involves rounding all numbers to the nearest 5. A summary of this strategy is as follows:
• 0, 1, 2 are rounded to 0 and represented as '*'.
• All other numbers are rounded to the nearest 5

Name

EDUC0189