Insufficient demand meant that just 17 of the 96 short courses developed as part of a pilot scheme intended to test the Westminster government’s new lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) were able to launch, according to an evaluation report.
Providers were only able to enrol a fraction of the 2,000 students intended to take part in the trial, with just 125 participating in total and only 41 of them applying for and obtaining new bespoke student loans to support their studies.
The “higher education short course trial” was launched by the Office for Students (OfS) in autumn 2021, with providers invited to adapt their existing degree programmes to offer standalone courses in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), education, digital innovation and healthcare and helping to meet the skills needs for net zero.
A total of 22 providers proposed 96 new courses and shared £2 million in funding to develop them in time to commence delivery from autumn 2022, a report prepared by the Careers Research and Advisory Centre of behalf of the OfS says.
