News

Performance figures show quality in admissions and completion rates

(11 December 2003)

The quality of the University of Durham learning experience has been highlighted by the latest figures from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce).

The annual 'Performance Indicators' show how institutions have performed against their individual benchmarks for completion rates and aspects of admissions such as the age, social class and school background of students.

The latest statistics relate to the situation in 2001-02 and therefore do not reflect further progress that has been made since then.

Vice-Chancellor Sir Kenneth Calman said : “These figures confirm that, two years ago, we were making good progress or sustaining an already outstanding performance. We can also see that they indicate a general trend that is continuing to the present day. We believe that our aspiration-raising work in schools which has been engaging the younger teenagers in schools over the past four years or so, will bring further advances over the next few years when those pupils start to apply to university.

“These statistics are also evidence of a lot of first-class work by staff, particularly in admissions and teaching in departments, in the care and support of colleges, and by schools liaison, marketing and administrative staff.”

“Efficiency”
The new figures show a very high “efficiency rating” for Durham of 96 per cent for students completing degrees, out of an intake of 2,884. This is four points above Durham’s benchmark of 92 and 11 points above the UK completion rate of 85 per cent. The high completion rates reflect the applicants’ abilities and the appropriate and supportive environment for living and learning. It’s a case of “They’ve started, so they finish.” Another 1 per cent of Durham’s students transferred elsewhere, leaving a non-completion figure of only 3 per cent.

Mature students
Durham has also marked up a significant success in creating opportunities for mature students who have no previous experience of higher education and come from low participation neighbourhoods. These highly-motivated students accounted for 30 per cent of the University’s 315 mature entrants in 2001-02 - and this is way above the Durham benchmark figure of 20.

In this particular section of the Performance Indicators, Durham also does nearly twice as well as the UK as a whole. All the higher education institutions together attracted only 16 per cent of mature students with no previous HE experience from low participation neighbourhoods. Statistics such as these demonstrate the pulling power of the University in attracting quality applicants from a very wide range of backgrounds

State schools
One of the major changes in the new admissions data is the rise in the number of students coming to Durham from state schools and colleges. The figure rose from 62 to 67 per cent. This reflects the targeted recruitment work in the state sector, particularly among some 90 schools in the north east and other activities such campus visits and residential summer schools for potential applicants from the local region and other parts of the country.

It also represents a large single step towards Durham’s target for state sector admissions of 71 per cent. (Although the original Hefce benchmark was 78 per cent, the figure of 71 takes account of the subject mix at Durham which includes subjects such as Classics for which there is a relatively low demand nationally from state schools.)

1. This is the fifth set of annual Performance Indicators published by the Hefce. Background to the Performance Indicators are on the Funding Council website: www.hefce.ac.uk/pi
2. Comparative figures for Durham for the period 1997-98 to 2001-02. Real student numbers have increased significantly even where percentages of a greater total student population may show only a modest move.

Further information:

Keith Seacroft, Head of Public Relations 0191 334 6077

11 December 2003