Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate his Department has made of the rate of covid-19 infections among Further Education and Higher Education student population.

There are a number of different sources of data which are relevant to understanding the estimated rate of COVID-19 in student populations – including both detected case rates and estimated positivity.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) publishes daily updates of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in their official COVID-19 dashboard. This covers all individuals, not only those attending further or higher education. By the most relevant available age breakdown:

• In the week to 28 January, the rate of cases for 15-19 year olds was 1,245.1 per 100,000 people (39,077 confirmed cases in 15-19 year olds in England, an increase from 36,392 cases the previous week).
• For 20–24 year olds during the same period, the rate was 859.1 per 100,000 people (29,834 cases in 20-24 year olds in England, a decrease from 31,143 cases the previous week).

UKHSA also publishes confirmed cases of COVID-19 for various educational-aged cohorts, including those of sixth form age (years 12 and 13), and university age, and for people reporting attending university settings in their weekly national flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports. In the week ending 30 January, there were 12,115 cases in people reporting attending university, an increase from 9,845 the week ending 23 January.

The Office for National Statistics Coronavirus Infection Survey estimates that in the week ending 29 January 2022, 4.13% of people in school year 12 (age 16/17) to age 24 would test positive for COVID-19. This is an increase from 3.81% in the week ending 22 January, but a decrease from 5.74% in the week ending 15 January.

There is high vaccination uptake amongst higher education students. Survey data published in December 2021 show that 78% of students had received both vaccine doses, 12% had received one.

All higher education institutions have an updated outbreak management plan, agreed with their local director of public health, and work closely with local health teams in the event of an outbreak at an institution. Further education providers have risk assessments in place and continue to implement in their settings the system of controls as outlined in the further education operational guidance (updated 19 January 2022) and the contingency framework for education and childcare settings (updated 21 January 2022). These documents can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-further-education-provision/further-education-covid-19-operational-guidance and here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-local-restrictions-in-education-and-childcare-settings.