Data collection

The Education (Fees and Awards) (England) Regulations 2007 (SI 2007 No. 779) can be found on the National Archives’ Legislation website.

Amendments to date are:

• Education (Student Fees, Awards and Support) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2007 (SI 2007 No. 2263)
• The Education (Student Fees, Awards and Support) (Amendment) Regulations 2011 (SI 2011 No. 87)
• The Education (Fees and Awards) (England) Regulations 2007 (Amendment) Regulations 2011 (SI 2011 No. 1987)
• The Education (Student Fees, Awards and Support) (Amendment) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012 No. 1653).

For further advice or guidance on interpretation of these regulations, providers should contact Student Finance England’s practitioners' helpline on 0300 100 0618.

Download the full list of Learndirect Classification System (LDCS) codes

The file above contains a full list of Learndirect Classification System (LDCS) codes and associated subject descriptions, as mentioned in paragraph 1, Annex G of the HEIFES18 publication (OfS 2018.39).

The table is based on a file extracted from the downloads area of the Learning Aims Search section of the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) Hub.

We will not routinely update the file to incorporate any amendments.

Yes. We use information from the ESFA to help establish which learning aims are recognised courses of higher education and to determine the appropriate price group(s) for the activity.

If a particular course is not listed on the learning aim search this may reduce our ability to provide quick and accurate responses to HEIFES queries, and will affect the onward use of Individualised Learner Record (ILR) data to inform and monitor OfS funding allocations.

Learning aim information such as qualification type and Learndirect code(s) enable colleges to:

• determine whether a course is classed as recognised higher education (see Annex B of HEIFES18)
• determine the price group assignment for a year of a programme of study (see paragraph 1 of Annex G of HEIFES18) when completing the HEIFES return.

Therefore, it is essential that colleges ensure that learning aims are registered on the ESFA Hub with the appropriate information required in time for data returns.

The time taken to add an aim will depend on the volume of work going through the ESFA. Providers should apply when they set up the course rather than when they first need to return data.

As soon as a provider has set up the course, they should contact the ESFA service desk to:

• indicate that they wish to register a new aim
• request the official form for completion.

The ESFA website includes guidance and resources for requesting new or missing higher education learning aims on the learning aim search. In particular:

• the HE learning aims request form (template)
• the HE approval letter (template).

The ‘HE learning aims request form’ will ask for the following information:

• learning aim title
• awarding body or institution
• awarding body reference (if applicable)
• learning aim type
• the academic year for which the aim is to be added.

For each learning aim requested, documentary evidence from the awarding/validating body must also be submitted to demonstrate:

• the name of the provider authorised to deliver the learning aim
• the title of the learning aim
• the academic year from which the learning aim is validated for.

European Union (EU) members

European Economic Area (EEA) members

Special cases

Students from Switzerland should be treated as if their country was a member of the EEA, but not the EU.

Students from Gibraltar should be treated as if they came from an EU country.

Students from outermost regions and overseas territories of EU states should be treated as Home and EU.

Students from the following outermost regions and overseas territories should be considered as Home and EU in HEIFES18 if they meet the criteria set out in the regulations in question 1.

Outermost regions

• Azores (Portugal)
• Canary Islands (Spain)
• French Guiana (France)
• Guadeloupe (France)
• Madeira (Portugal)
• Martinique (France)
• Mayotte (France)
• La Réunion (France).

British overseas territories

• Anguilla
• Bermuda
• British Antarctic Territory
• British Indian Ocean Territory
• British Virgin Islands
• Cayman Islands
• Falkland Islands
• Montserrat
• Pitcairn Islands (including Ducie, Henderson and Oeno)
• Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
• South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
• Turks and Caicos Islands.

French overseas territories and collectivities

• French Polynesia
• French Southern and Antarctic Lands
• New Caledonia and its Dependencies
• Saint-Barthélemy
• Saint-Pierre and Miquelon
• Wallis and Futuna.

Overseas territories of other EU member states

• Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten (Netherlands)
• Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (Netherlands)
• Greenland and Faroe Isles (Denmark).

Annex F of HEIFES18 states that students on closed courses are not eligible for OfS recurrent funding.

Factors which we use in determining whether a course is open or closed include:

• How the programme is marketed:
  • Are there entry restrictions or requirements that suggest it is not open to any suitably qualified candidate? (closed)
  • Is it advertised widely, including in general prospectuses, as would be expected of other open courses? (open)
• To what extent is the course content tailored towards the needs of particular, named employers?
• Where there is a requirement for particular workplace experience or learning, what arrangements are there to ensure all students have an opportunity for an equivalent experience, irrespective of their existing employment circumstances?
• What is the makeup of the student population on the course? If answers to the previous questions suggested that a course was open, but we then found that all the students on the course were employees of a single company, how had that outcome arisen?

Annex F of HEIFES18 explains that UK NARIC can advise on the relative level of qualifications when assessing a student's ELQ status.

Other sources of information which may help in determining the academic level of qualifications include:

• The Register of Regulated Qualifications
• The Education and Skills Funding Agency's (ESFA) Hub

The level given for a qualification on each of these databases can be used to measure equivalency with the levels on the Frameworks for Higher Education Qualifications of UK Degree-Awarding Bodies.

A leaflet provided by the QAA shows how the levels within the Frameworks compare to other frameworks.

An NHS-bursaried course is one that is eligible for an NHS bursary.

NHS-bursaried courses need to be considered in relation to ELQ exemptions in the HEIFES18 guidance. Students that are on a year of a course for which an NHS bursary is payable are exempt from the ELQ policy (Annex F, HEIFES18). This applies even if the individual student does not receive, or is not eligible for, the bursary.

However, students that are NHS funded or have their tuition fees paid by the NHS will not necessarily be on an NHS-bursaried course (or year of course). Likewise students on an NHS-bursaried course will not necessarily be NHS funded or have their tuition fees paid by the NHS.

In addition, there are social work bursaries which are administered through the NHS bursary scheme. Although these are not NHS bursaries, for the purposes of recording the students' activity in HEIFES, these should be considered as NHS bursaries.

Additional information

• General guidance on NHS bursaries can be found on the NHSBSA website
• The financial help for healthcare students booklet on the NHS student bursaries website provides a list of the courses that are funded through the NHS bursary scheme. The booklet also lists the other bursary eligibility requirements relating to applicants' residence and immigration status in the UK
• Additional guidance for students on bursaries and guidance on eligibility are also available on the NHSBSA website.

For queries on eligibility of a course or student for a bursary, contact NHS bursaries.