Government launches new initiative for prospective students

The Government has launched a new information initiative to help prospective students in their decision-making about what and where to study.

From this Autumn, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK are required to include Key Information Sets (KIS) – the new set of standardised statistics for undergraduate qualifications – on their online qualification pages.
 
KIS was launched by Business Secretary Vince Cable who said:  “Applying to university is a big decision and we want to ensure that all students, whatever their background, have the key facts at their fingertips to help them make the right choice for them. The introduction of the Key Information Set represents a major step forward for students, their parents, and their school and college advisers.”
 
KIS draws on statistics from the National Student Survey (NSS), Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey, and information directly from institutions, and covers areas including satisfaction with specific qualifications and support, accreditation of courses, and employment and salaries of students after graduation.
 
Key Information Sets across all HEIs and qualifications are held centrally on HEFCE’s Unistats website to enable prospective students to compare institutions – a selection of the statistics will be embedded on HEIs’ websites using a ‘widget’, which will draw data directly from, and link, to Unistats. The widget was released on 27 September and HEIs have until 31 October to add it to their online course pages, which the OU has already done.
 
You can see an example of how KIS appears on Study at the OU here, by scrolling down the page. KIS is for UK students and will be visible to those selecting a UK nation state in the drop down under ‘key facts’.

More information about KIS can be found on the HEFCE website.