Accreditation and Related Regulatory Matters in the United Kingdom

Abstract

There are currently nearly 2 million students studying in the UK’s 167 higher education institutions. This reflects substantial growth and diversification during the 1990s. Of the more than 160 institutions, 132 are in England of which 77 are universities, 14 are general colleges and 41 are specialist colleges, e.g. in music or art and design. There are 14 universities in Scotland and four higher education colleges. Wales has a federal university with eight constituent colleges, one other university and four colleges. Northern Ireland has two universities. The UK universities include the former polytechnics and some higher education colleges ‘upgraded’ to university status in 1992/93. Of the 2 million students studying in UK higher education in 2000/01, 1.5 million were undergraduates (mainly bachelor’s programmes) of whom just over 1 million studied full-time. Of nearly half a million postgraduate students, 172,000 were full-time and 276,000 were part-time. Over 100,000 of the postgraduate students were from overseas. Participation of the age cohort stands at 43% and the government target is to reach at least 50% by 2012.