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Children in Care

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if schools are required to record whether a pupil is living in (a) a residential care home or (b) with foster parents. [61783]

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Mr. Ivan Lewis: Schools are not currently required to record this information. However with effect from January 2003 the returns for the Pupil Level Annual Schools Census (PLASC) will include three new data items about looked after children to show:

whether or not the pupil was looked after on the Census day;


whether or not the pupil has, to the school's knowledge, been looked after at any time since they joined the school;


and the identity of the caring authority for the pupil's current (or most recent) looked-after episode.

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what provision the Government makes to ensure children in care remain in the same educational institution until the age of 16 years. [61785]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: The Government recognise that changes in care arrangements can disrupt the education of children who are looked after, and are determined to promote stability.

This Department, jointly with the Department of Health, issued guidance to all authorities in May 2000 on the education of children and young people in public care. The guidance emphasises the importance of a stable care and education placement in order to promote educational success for children in public care. The Department of Health also set targets within the Quality Protects programme to promote stability and reduce placement moves.

Under s22(3) of the Children Act, local authorities have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children and young people who are looked after, education being a critical dimension of their welfare. It is for local authorities to decide on a case-by-case basis whether it is in the best interests of a child in public care to remain in the same educational establishment.

Child Care

Caroline Flint: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans the Government have to make access to child care less dependent on families' income, location and their employment status. [62156]

Mr. Miliband: The Government's national child care strategy was introduced in May 1998 to ensure that affordable, accessible and quality child care is available in every neighbourhood and complements early education, schools and other family services. By March 2004, we will have created 900,000 new child care places for 1.6 million children which, taking into account turnover, should allow around 1 million extra children to benefit. We are working in particular to extend child care provision in disadvantaged areas through Neighbourhood Nurseries and other programmes, and to make it more affordable, through measures like the working families tax credit, under which lower income families can receive help with up to 70 per cent. of their eligible child care costs. Support with child care costs is a feature of the New Deal, particularly the New Deal for Lone Parents, and is also available to further and higher education student parents.

Caroline Flint: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the Government's long-term objective is for child care by 2010. [62158]

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Mr. Miliband: The inter-departmental review of child care being led by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Early Years and School Standards is developing a 10-year vision and strategy for child care, focusing on the provision of quality, affordable and accessible child care. Final decisions on the outcomes of the review will be taken in the context of the 2002 spending review.

Caroline Flint: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when the PIU review of the national child care strategy will be published. [62159]

Mr. Miliband: We expect that outcomes from the inter-departmental review of child care being led by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Early Years and School Standards will be announced in the 2002 spending review this summer.

Religious Education

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what policy changes she plans for (a) school assemblies and (b) religious education in (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools; and if she will make a statement. [61856]

Mr. Miliband: We have no particular policy on school assemblies as it is for schools to decide the frequency, format and content of any assembly which takes place.

The current policy regarding religious education (RE) is set out in circular 1–94. The detail of RE is determined locally and we do not have any plans to change that.

Sign Language

Mr. Gray: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what discussions she has had with the British Deaf Association and RNID about whether teachers of the deaf should be required to have a BSL qualification; and if she will make a statement; [61874]

(2) whether teachers of the deaf are given British sign language training at public expense; and to what extent they are required to pay fees to achieve that training. [61875]

Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 17 June 2002]: In addition to holding qualified teacher status, teachers who are employed to teach classes of pupils with hearing impairment are required by regulations to undertake an additional specialist mandatory qualification (MQ). In July 1999, at the request of the then Secretary of State, the Teacher Training Agency carried out a review of existing arrangements in order to develop a new specification for MQ provision. The resulting specification, amended in light of consultation with a wide range of organisations, including those representing children with hearing impairment, requires teachers pursuing the hearing impairment MQ to acquire a minimum competence in signing equivalent to the stage one qualification offered by the Council for the Advancement of Communications with Deaf People.

Under the special educational needs category of the Department's standards fund, grant support is available to local education authorities and schools for training and professional development of teachers and other staff. It is open to them to use this funding to help staff to secure necessary mandatory qualifications, or other training in signing including British sign language.

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Music Therapy

Mr. Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what support her Department gives for the use of music therapy to assist people with disabilities. [62089]

Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 17 June 2002]: Under the Standards Fund 2002–03, the Department is supporting local expenditure of £91 million to enhance provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities. One of the expenditure headings is therapies and it would be open to local education authorities to use part of their allocation to support music therapy if they so wish.

Educational Attainment

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many and what percentage of pupils awarded educational maintenance allowances were living (a) in a residential care home and (b) with foster parents in the last three years for which figures are available. [62173]

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Margaret Hodge [holding answer 18 June 2002]: We do not require local education authorities, who administer the pilot EMA schemes, to collect this information. However, across three pilot areas which are specifically targeting vulnerable young people, around 40 EMA recipients have been identified as being in residential care. The purpose of these pilots is to examine how the effectiveness of EMA in reaching out to the most vulnerable groups in society can be maximised.

Overseas Students

Mr. Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many overseas students there are in England and Wales universities, broken down by university; and what percentage overseas students represent of the student population. [62175]

Margaret Hodge: The requested information is given in the table. The student numbers shown cover full-time and part-time courses of higher education, including both undergraduate and postgraduate levels of study.

Student enrolments⁽¹²⁾ in English and Welsh higher education institutions 2001–02 (provisional)Census counts as at 1 December 2001

Higher education institution	Overseas students	Total students (all domiciles)	Overseas as a proportion of total (Percentage)
England
Anglia Polytechnic University	2,290	19,500	12
Aston University	860	6,930	12
Bath College of Higher Education	210	4,170	5
Birkbeck College	360	11,860	3
Bishop Grosseteste College	0	1,020	0
Bolton Institute of Higher Education	390	5,940	7
Bournemouth University	1,190	12,890	9
Brunel University	1,520	13,410	11
Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education	830	8,610	10
Canterbury Christ Church College	370	11,400	3
Central School of Speech and Drama	80	620	13
Chester College of Higher Education	150	6,250	2
Chichester Institute of Higher Education	50	4,040	1
City University	2,820	12,880	22
College of St. Mark and St. John	230	3,130	7
Conservatoire for Dance and Drama	90	340	26
Coventry University	2,440	16,240	15
Cranfield University	1,130	3,560	32
Cumbria Institute of the Arts	60	840	7
Dartington College of Arts	60	480	13
De Montfort University	1,760	21,570	8
Edge Hill College of Higher Education	170	7,930	2
Falmouth College of Arts	90	1,530	6
Goldsmiths College	1,310	7,270	18
Harper Adams Agricultural College	170	1,740	10
Homerton College	50	2,390	2
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine	3,850	11,840	33
Institute of Advanced Nursing Education	40	760	5
Institute of Education, University of London	580	3,460	17
Institute of Cancer Research	60	470	13
Kent Institute of Art and Design	470	2,030	23
King Alfred's College, Winchester	110	4,240	3
King's College London	3,100	17,270	18
Kingston University	1,990	15,850	13
Leeds Metropolitan University	1,680	21,890	8
Liverpool Hope	330	6,480	5
Liverpool John Moores University	1,710	19,580	9
London Business School	970	1,450	67
London Guildhall University	1,720	12,440	14
London School of Economics and Political Science	5,030	8,080	62
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine	400	780	51
Loughborough University	1,640	13,550	12
Middlesex University	5,280	22,150	24
Nene College	510	9,940	5
Newman College	80	1,450	6
Northern School of Contemporary Dance	40	150	27
Norwich School of Art and Design	20	730	3
Oxford Brookes University	2,540	14,220	18
Queen Mary and Westfield College	1,960	9,440	21
Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication	110	710	15
Roehampton Institute of Higher Education	650	7,000	9
Rose Bruford College	130	800	16
Royal Academy of Music	270	610	44
Royal Agricultural College	90	580	16
Royal College of Art	260	850	31
Royal College of Music	170	540	31
Royal Holloway and Bedford New College	1,430	5,760	25
Royal Northern College of Music	130	600	22
Sheffield Hallam University	1,440	23,130	6
South Bank University	1,110	16,730	7
Southampton Institute	970	10,600	9
St. George's Hospital Medical School	190	2,790	7
St. Martin's College	300	7,920	4
St. Mary's College	190	2,660	7
Staffordshire University	1,140	16,280	7
Surrey Institute of Art and Design	350	2,820	12
Thames Valley University	1,420	13,330	11
The Arts Institute of Bournemouth	80	1,090	7
The London Institute	3,120	10,160	31
The Manchester Metropolitan University	1,860	28,560	7
The Nottingham Trent University	1,590	22,210	7
The Open University	0	150,890	0
The Royal Veterinary College	170	900	19
The School of Oriental and African Studies	1,520	3,540	43
The School of Pharmacy, University of London	160	780	21
The University of Bath	1,940	10,450	19
The University of Birmingham	4,000	25,200	16
The University of Bradford	1,710	10,606	17
The University of Brighton	2,010	15,150	13
The University of Bristol	2,340	17,350	13
The University of Cambridge	4,690	21,450	22
The University of Central England in Birmingham	1,430	18,060	8
The University of Central Lancashire	2,370	23,250	10
The University of East Anglia	1,640	12,540	13
The University of East London	2,030	12,420	16
The University of Essex	2,630	8,240	32
The University of Exeter	1,520	12,080	13
The University of Greenwich	2,510	17,100	15
The University of Huddersfield	880	16,420	5
The University of Hull	2,260	16,400	14
The University of Keele	910	9,430	10
The University of Kent at Canterbury	2,250	12,470	18
The University of Lancaster	2,180	11,240	19
The University of Leeds	4,810	32,820	15
The University of Leicester	2,830	16,630	17
The University of Lincoln	1,460	11,270	13
The University of Liverpool	3,080	21,860	14
The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology	2,090	6,970	30
The University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne	2,210	17,370	13
The University of North London	2,410	14,030	17
The University of Northumbria at Newcastle	2,240	19,570	11
The University of Nottingham	3,900	23,930	16
The University of Oxford	4,560	20,850	22
The University of Plymouth	1,650	21,780	8
The University of Portsmouth	2,970	16,880	18
The University of Reading	2,500	13,570	18
The University of Salford	1,670	17,100	10
The University of Sheffield	3,200	22,970	14
The University of Southampton	2,090	19,150	11
The University of Sunderland	1,340	11,340	12
The University of Surrey	2,370	11,500	21
The University of Sussex	2,320	11,280	21
The University of Teesside	640	13,650	5
The University of Warwick	4,160	20,210	21
The University of Westminster	3,540	21,340	17
The University of Wolverhampton	1,790	19,360	9
The University of York	1,140	9,450	12
The Victoria University of Manchester	3,750	24,990	15
Trinity and All Saints College	80	2,590	3
Trinity College of Music	120	490	24
University College London	4,970	19,210	26
University of Derby	590	11,400	5
University of Durham	1,410	13,560	10
University of Gloucestershire	260	7,960	3
University of Hertfordshire	2,140	18,300	12
University of London (Central Institutes and activities)	270	790	34
University of Luton	2,510	9,390	27
University of the West of England, Bristol	1,390	21,060	7
Wimbledon School of Art	90	620	15
Worcester College of Higher Education	190	5,290	4
Writtle College	140	1,240	11
York St. John College	210	4,860	4
Wales
Swansea Institute of Higher Education	180	4,840	4
The North-East Wales Institute of Higher Education	350	4,890	7
The University of Wales, Lampeter	340	4,560	7
Trinity College, Carmarthen	110	2,260	5
University of Glamorgan	1,360	15,900	9
University of Wales College of Medicine	270	3,330	8
University of Wales College, Newport	420	7,530	6
University of Wales Institute, Cardiff	490	7,900	6
University of Wales, Aberystwyth	980	9,700	10
University of Wales, Bangor	680	8,420	8
University of Wales, Cardiff	2,740	19,030	14
University of Wales, Swansea	1,330	10,890	12
Welsh College of Music and Drama	50	600	8
Total England and Wales	199,300	1,642,300	12

⁽¹²⁾ Includes full-time and part-time enrolments on undergraduate and postgraduate courses of HE in higher education institutions in England and Wales. Institution numbers have been rounded to nearest 10 and totals to nearest 100.

Source:

Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) December 2001 Student Record.

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