The government is introducing the Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE) from the 2025-26 academic year. The Office for Students (OfS) is considering how they might develop their regulation to respond to any changes to the delivery of higher education courses that may result from the implementation of the LLE.
The OfS issued a call for evidence from 27 July 2023 to 2 November 2023, seeking views about how to measure student outcomes resulting from modular study.
Our response
The independent sector has established provision for the LLE market, in modular form. For most IHE members, short courses and modular delivery have been at the heart of their offer since they first opened their doors.
In our response we highlighted that the approach to measuring progression or outcomes on short or modular courses is highly contextual. It is often woven across quality processes, and tempered by the constraints of collecting this data from students who may only spend a brief period of time with the provider. IHE welcomes the opportunity to work with the OfS to share our expertise and grow understanding of the learners who are studying in this manner, and what types of measurement can be used for progression.
We reiterated our reservations around setting graduate outcomes linked to degree level study within modular study as there are some well-documented issues with current progression measures that are used for industry relevant study, linked to SOC codes which classify graduates as unskilled.
We also recommended that the OfS should deliver on their commitment to expand student choice by ensuring providers can register with the OfS in a transparent and timely manner, and revisit the regulatory approach to enable new providers to join the regulated space through a timely and efficient process.
Read our full response using the download link below.