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20 May 2004 : Column 1158W—continued

Social Sciences

Mrs. Lawrence: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what (a) financial assistance and (b) grants his Department offers students undertaking postgraduate degrees in social sciences. [174131]

Alan Johnson: Research awards to postgraduate students in the social sciences are awarded on a competitive basis by the Economic and Social Research Council, funded by the Office of Science and Technology. Research council awards include increased tax free stipends (from £9,000 for 2004–05 to £12,000 by 2005–06) to cover living expenses.

Post graduate students, regardless of discipline, are not eligible for student loans and grants. They are free to apply for a Career Development Loan, a scheme which is administered by my Department. Postgraduates with a disability are able to receive assistance for specialist equipment, for example, as well as additional travel and non medical help costs through
 
20 May 2004 : Column 1159W
 
Disabled Students Allowances (DSAs), up to a maximum of £5,370 in academic year 2003/04 and £5,500 in 2004/05.

Mrs. Lawrence: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what action he is taking to widen participation in postgraduate study of social sciences. [174133]

Alan Johnson: The Government are investing significant sums in widening access to higher education. This will have the additional benefit of increasing the supply of potential postgraduate students, including students in the social sciences. The increased funding available for science and research, (up £1.25 million by 2005/06 compared to 2003/04) will also expand the opportunities for research across all disciplines. Financial support for postgraduate study is available through the Career Development Loan Scheme which is administered by my Department.

Surplus School Places

Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills under what powers local education authorities may be required to reduce the number of surplus places in schools. [173100]

Mr. Miliband [holding answer 14 May 2004]: Under Schedule 7 to the Schools Standards and Framework Act 1998, the Secretary of State may direct a local education authority (LEA) to bring forward statutory proposals where there is, or is likely to be, an excess of school places. If the LEA does not publish proposals or if the proposals are time expired, Schedule 7 allows the Secretary of State to publish his own proposals. Both types of proposal fall to be considered by the School Organisation Committee (SOC) or schools adjudicator if the SOC cannot reach a unanimous decision. The powers granted to the Secretary of State under Schedule 7 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 have never been used.

Teachers

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) if he will make a statement on the methods used to allocate initial teacher training places to each subject; [174563]

(2) if he will make a statement on the number of initial teacher training places allocated to religious education. [174564]

Mr. Miliband [holding answer 20 May 2004]: The allocation of undergraduate and postgraduate teacher training places in England by phase and subject is informed by the outputs of the Teacher Supply Model. Details of how the model works may be found in the paper "Teacher Supply and Demand Modelling: A Technical Description", a copy of which has been placed in the Library.

On 27 December last year, I announced that, for 2004/05, 730 training places would be available for religious education, 30 more than in the current year. These do not include places on employment-based training programmes.
 
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Teaching Assistants

Colin Burgon: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many teaching assistants were employed in schools in (a) Leeds and (b) Elmet constituency for each year since 1996. [173392]

Mr. Miliband [holding answer 14 May 2004]: The following table shows the full-time equivalent number of teaching assistants employed in all maintained schools including non-maintained special schools in Leeds local education authority for each January since 1996 and for Elmet constituency in each January since 1997. Information is not available at constituency level prior to 1996.

	Leeds LEA	Elmet
1996	1,470	—
1997	1,570	180
1998	1,680	190
1999	1,670	190
2000	1,790	220
2001	1,950	220
2002	2,390	260
2003	2,480	290

Source:
Annual Schools Census

Transport Workers (Centres of Excellence)

Mr. Flight: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many centres of excellence for transport workers have been established since 1997. [174155]

Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 18 May 2004]: Since 1997 20 Centres of Vocational Excellence have been established covering the transport sector and associated engineering sectors. These include logistics, automotive engineering and rail industry engineering.

Truancy

Mr. Collins: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many children played truant at least once from (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in each year since 1997, broken down by parliamentary constituency. [167565]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: The information requested has been placed in the Library.

Universities

Mr. Wills: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the rate of return on each subject studied at each university. [172109]

Alan Johnson: The Department does not conduct a formal cost-benefit assessment, or rate of return, to university qualifications by subject or by institution.

However, the Department has commissioned research to estimate the earnings benefits of different degree subjects. Table 1 shows the estimated percentage wage premium by subject over and above someone with A levels alone.
 
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Table 1: Wage benefits to HE by subject⁽⁹⁾ Percentage

Subject	Women	Men
Languages	20	4
Health	24	23
Nursing	12	10
Science	7	11
Maths	19	22
Engineering	11	18
Architecture	21	10
Economics	20	23
Law	24	23
Education	2	-3
Social science	4	6
Arts	-2	-8
Combined	5	11

⁽⁹⁾ Source:
Analysis provided by Ian Walker and Yu Zhu, from data used in their research: "The Returns to Education: Evidence from the Labour Force Surveys—DfES research report No.313.

Recent research evidence has also found up to 44 percentage point differences in average graduate earnings depending on the institution attended. ¹

¹  Conlon and Chevalier (2000) Financial Returns to Undergraduates and Tuition Fees, CIHE.

Vocational Qualifications

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many adults achieved an NVQ level 2 or equivalent qualification in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement. [172977]

Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 13 May 2004]: Table 1 shows the number of NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications) and OVQs (Other Vocational Qualifications), at level 2, achieved by adults in each year since 1997/98. Data are for England and are taken from the National Information System for Vocational Qualifications (NISVQ).
Table 1: The number of level 2 qualifications ⁽¹⁰⁾ achieved by adults ⁽¹¹⁾, in England, 1997/98 to 2001/02 Thousand

	NVQs	OVQs	Total level 2 awards
1997/98	171	58	229
1998/99	161	65	226
1999/2000	167	76	243
2000/01	152	96	247
2001/02	139	79	218

⁽¹⁰⁾ NVQ figures are based on information relating to all awarding bodies that award NVQs. OVQ data are for City and Guilds, OCR and Edexcel only.
⁽¹¹⁾ Adults are defined as those who are academic age 18 or over. Academic age is age of the person at the start of the academic year e.g. in 2001/02 age would be calculated against 31 August 2001.
Source:
NISVQ

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