This field holds the student FTE, representing the provider's best academic judgement of the full-time equivalence of the student (for this instance period) during the reporting year 1 August - 31 July. The value can be recorded to one decimal place and must be between 0 and 300.

All instances.

Full-time, full year students would normally be returned as 100 and part-time students returned as a proportion of an equivalent full-time course. Comparisons and weightings of different full-time, full year courses are not expected. The proportion of part-time study can be estimated on either a 'time' or a 'credit' basis. The FTE should not be weighted to take account of any resourcing implications of different courses.

All students following a course would initially be assumed to have the same FTE. An adjustment may need to be made at individual student level if a student did not actually follow the whole course academic year, e.g. because they left half way through. This individual student adjustment need only be at a very broad-brush level.

The calculation of FTE therefore becomes a function of proportion (that the course represents of a full-time benchmark course) x time (amount of the course that the student followed in the HESA reporting year).

It is recognised that this cannot be exact in all cases and a strict pro-rata model is not expected. The aim is to give a better approximation than the use of arbitrary conversion factors.

Further detailed notes are available on reporting FTE.

The length of this field is 5 characters, however XML enables data to be returned with or without leading zeros or the decimal place, e.g. '005.0' or '5.0' or '5'.

Example 1

In this example, the student is active for the duration of each term (September-June). They are studying on a full-time mode and therefore their STULOAD is returned as 100.

In the AP student record the data would be returned as follows:

Example 2

In this second example a student commences a two-year programme on a full-time mode. In the second year they decide to reduce the intensity of their study and instead elect to continue on a part-time mode. The change in intensity means that their STULOAD will reduce and in this case they will need to study for an additional year in order to complete the course requirements.

In the AP student record the data would be returned as follows:

The STULOAD for a part-time student will vary depending on the intensity at which they are studying and the point in the year at which they change mode.

Example 3

In this third example, the years of study are not contained within the HESA reporting period of 01 August-31 July.

In the AP student record the data would be returned as follows:

In the second HESA reporting year two instance periods would be reported to HESA and the STULOAD for the reporting year would be apportioned between the two instance periods. It is important to remember that you are reporting on the STULOAD contained within the HESA reporting year and that the load for an instance period should not be double counted.

Across the whole of this two-year programme the STULOAD will sum to 200, but this will be split across three reporting periods and two instance periods.

Example 4

Where a programme is studied at an accelerated rate the STULOAD reported in each year will be greater than for an equivalent ‘non-accelerated’ programme.

For example, if a 3 year degree programme is condensed into two instance periods, both of which are contained within HESA reporting years the STULOAD returned in each year would be 150. Summed across the two years this would give 300 which would be equivalent to a standard 3 year programme.

Example A student studying the equivalent of a three year course over five years would be returned as 60.

A student studying 30 credits in the current year, in the case where 120 credits is the norm for a full-time student, would be returned as 25.

To allow analysis by FTE, representing student load, rather than by headcount or apportioned numbers.