This month has seen the publication of the evaluation of the OfS Short Course trial by the Careers Research & Advisory Centre (CRAC). Please don’t hold your breath! The results are underwhelming to say the least, and it’s fair to say the exercise has failed to provide any reliable answers to the many questions about how – and if – the Lifelong Learning Entitlement policy is going to work.
One of the main aims of the OfS pilot was to “provide further understanding about short course provision and participation, ahead of the LLE planned for 2025” (now pushed back to 2027).
It didn’t. The plan was for 22 providers to offer a total of 96 new short courses enrolling over 2,000 students. In the event, only 17 courses at 10 providers were delivered during 2022/23 with a total of – wait for it – 125 enrolments. Over half the courses enrolled five or fewer students. What’s more, two institutions waived course fees and at two others all the students were members of staff, so less than half the participants actually paid any fees. Only 41 applicants applied for and obtained the new bespoke student loan.
In short, the £2m programme failed to provide any evidence of the potential demand for short courses (minimum 30 credits), or of the impact of the new student loan product on levels of participation.
