The Office for National Statistics (ONS) ran a consultation from 29 June 2023 to 26 October 2023 on the future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales. These statistics cover a wide range of areas, including household characteristics, employment, health, religion and international migration.
The consultation was designed to provide the ONS with information on how people currently use their population and migration statistics, and capture user feedback on plans for the future development of these statistics.
Our response
IHE uses migration statistics to estimate international student populations to support member organisations with planning and strategic modelling. We model student journeys, using data on domestic and international students, to enable members to plan student recruitment and resources for international and domestic students. As a representative body, IHE uses migration data to estimate variations in international student visas to support public policy decision making. We also use this data to support international partnership activity and contribute to ongoing discussions of export revenue from international education.
IHE strongly supports more robust and timely population statistics to facilitate better policy discussions. In our response, we highlighted that the proposals meet some of our needs. We strongly encouraged more integration between population statistics and education data to support the proposed model to create more robust data on students, both domestic and international. We encouraged the use of education statistics along with a greater depth of data collected by the Home Office through the border, visa and sponsor systems to enable a more robust understanding of student characteristics at local level.
Read our full response using the download link below.