Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP, Minister of State for Lifelong Learning
Further and Higher Education
During my appearance before the select committee
on 3 December I agreed to write to you with confirmation on the
position of the expansion of foundation degree places. This followed
your question about whether correspondence had been sent to the
sector from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
with the message that all future bids for HE expansion must be
through foundation degrees.
As I mentioned during the Select Committee session,
we are committed to expanding the number of both foundation degree
places and traditional first degree places. Growth in fast degree
student numbers is already in the system as a result of HEFCE's
previous additional student number (ASN) exercises. HEFCE's 2004-05
ASN exercise, therefore, will be concentrating on foundation degrees
and it would appear that the documentation associated with this
ASN bidding round is the correspondence in question.
7 January 2004
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