High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Age Participation Index (API)
The Scottish Age Participation Index (API) for a given year is defined as the number of young Scots aged under 21 who enter a full-time HE course for the first time in that year taken as a percentage of the population of 17 year olds at 31 December in the same year. In simple terms it is an estimate of the share of 17 year olds in the population who, can be expected to enter HE for the first time before their 21st birthday , if current trends continue.
In 2006-07, the Age Participation Index for Scotland was 46.9%, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points since 2005-06. The index has been around the 50% mark for the past 10 years, reaching 51.5% between 2000 and 2002. In the mid 1980s the index stood, at around 20%.
Over a ten year period participation by females has been around 10 percentage points higher than by males. Participation rates in 2006-07 were 52.9% for females (a decrease of 0.6 percentage points since last year) and 41.2% for males (an increase of 0.2 percentage points on last years figure of 41%). The gender gap has therefore reduced slightly compared to the previous year.
HEIs contribute 29.6% to the API figure and colleges 15.5%. The share of HEIs has decreased by 0.6 percentage points while colleges increased their contribution by 0.6 percentage points.
Source: Scottish Government Lifelong Learning Statistics, Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and Scottish Funding Council (SFC)
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