Destination of Leavers from Higher Education Survey in directly funded FECs

September 2008 | ref: Circular letter 25/2008

To:

Heads of HEFCE-funded further education colleges

Dear Principal

1. This letter contains important information for all further education colleges (FECs) with directly funded higher education (HE). Please therefore bring it to the attention of HE managers, MIS managers, quality managers and HE course leaders within your institution.

2. This is an update on the introduction of the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) Survey, to FECs with higher education that is directly funded by HEFCE and those in which provision is funded as part of a HEFCE-recognised funding consortium.

3. The DLHE survey collects information on what leavers from higher education programmes are doing six months after qualifying from their HE course (employed, engaged in further study and so on). The DLHE has been administered in higher education institutions (HEIs) in its current form since 2002-03, having previously been known as the First Destination Survey.

4. The results of the DLHE survey form part of the Teaching Quality Information (TQI) data published for HEIs on the Unistats web-site (www.unistats.ac.uk). The purpose of the web-site is to help potential students make choices about where to study.

5. You will be aware that HEFCE is developing a TQI dataset for directly funded HE provided in FECs, with the intention that it should be as similar as possible to that produced for HEIs so that users of the Unistats site can make direct comparisons between providers (see HEFCE Circular Letters 08/2007 and 17/2007 for further information). The National Student Survey (NSS), which included students on directly funded HE courses in FECs for the first time this year, forms part of this dataset. The DLHE survey is now to be rolled out to directly funded HE students at FECs in the same way. Students studying on courses in FECs which are franchised from HEIs are already included in the DLHE survey. By including their directly funded colleagues, we aim to gain a more complete picture and gather valuable information that can be used for research purposes. We expect to be able to share the data with FECs to help them better understand the destinations of their leavers.

6. Although HEIs run the DLHE themselves, in FECs it is to be run centrally by a survey agency, using the same questions as in the HEI survey to ensure direct data comparison. This is because there are relatively small numbers of students studying directly funded HE courses in FECs, and it would be overly burdensome for colleges to run the DLHE. HEFCE has appointed IFF Research to undertake this work. IFF has a long history of conducting survey research for public sector clients across a range of departments and agencies, and has been prominent in informing debate on learning, skills and education. It has particular expertise in studies looking at destination tracking including the longitudinal DLHE for HESA (which surveys graduates three years after leaving) and a longitudinal study of leavers from FE and HE for the Scottish Funding Council.

Action for colleges

7. FECs should identify a member of staff to act as a first point of contact with IFF. They should e-mail Steve Close, senior project manager at IFF (stevec@IFFResearch.com), with this information by 31 October 2008. If IFF have not heard from FECs by this date, it will contact the college directly and ask for a name to be provided. IFF will then provide the contact with further information and will work with FECs to help them raise the profile of the DLHE with their students.

8. As with the NSS, FECs will be expected to provide IFF Research with contact details for those leavers that are in the target population for the survey (those who have left with a qualification in the relevant period). The DLHE takes place in two tranches, one surveying students that leave between August and December and the second for students that leave between January and July. HEFCE will use the 2008-09 Individualised Learner Record (ILR) F04 return to generate a target list for the second tranche, but there is currently no ILR return that covers leavers in the August to December period. Therefore, FECs will be required to apply a specified algorithm to their student record systems to determine a list of eligible students, then return these together with their contact details to IFF Research. HEFCE will notify FECs of which students are eligible for the survey, and provide the algorithm, by the end of November.

9. Please be assured that provision of leaver details in this way is permitted by the Data Protection Act 1998. IFF Research will conduct an opt-out exercise prior to the start of fieldwork. Leavers' contact details will only be used by IFF Research for conducting this research, and after the survey is completed they will delete all contact details. However, if leavers provide updated contact details during the course of the survey these will be passed back to your institution if the individual permits this.

10. As with the NSS, to maximise the response rate for the survey and therefore increase the chances of reaching a publishable threshold for data, FECs are asked to publicise the survey to students who will complete their HE courses within the relevant period, making the following points:

The DLHE will take place approximately six months after the student leaves the college.
Its purpose is to find out what leavers are doing, and whether their studies have influenced this.
The results of the survey will be added to the Unistats site and will form part of the information used by potential students to help them make choices about where to study.
Taking part in the survey provides a service to future students and helps the college to learn more about student destinations.

11. FECs are not expected to administer the survey themselves, but FEC colleagues may wish to look at the most recent DLHE questionnaire, as used in HEIs, to familiarise themselves with the questions that their student leavers will be asked. The questionnaire can be found with other related documents on the HESA web-site (www.hesa.ac.uk) under 'DLHE stream' in the right hand panel - select the most recent collection and then click on 'English Questionnaire'.

Timetable

12. FECs should note the following dates:

31 October 2008 - contact details should be provided to IFF Research
end of November 2008 - IFF will contact FECs confirming the details required; HEFCE will contact FECs with details of the target students and algorithm
January 2009 - IFF will send full guidance to FECs
by end January 2009 - target lists of students that left between August and December 2008 should have been generated
April to June 2009 - the first tranche of the survey takes place for students that left between August and December 2008
November 2009 to March 2010 - the second tranche of the survey takes place for students that left between January and July 2009
summer 2010 - the first set of data to be published on the Unistats web-site; data on leavers from individual FECs to be made available to the institutions.