Autumn and Spring Term 2020/21

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Reporting in Higher Education Providers

This is the latest data

• Published: 19 February 2021

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This ad hoc statistics publication provides a summary of confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) cases known to higher education providers between 1 August 2020 and 3 February 2021. Weekly breakdowns of confirmed cases along with numbers of students known to be self-isolating are presented from 29 October. The data covers England only. 

Context of the Release

To understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on England’s higher education sector, the Department for Education (DfE) asked the Office for Students to set up a reporting tool. Higher Education providers (HEPs) were asked to record confirmed COVID-19 cases reported to them by staff and students. They were also asked to provide summary information on how the pandemic is impacting their teaching provision (by reporting their higher education tiers of restriction) and further contextualising information. 

All English HEPs registered with the Office for Students in October 2020 were invited to participate, except for further education colleges. The total number of providers in scope was 237. 

‘Case’ here means a positive test result known to providers and reported to DfE through the Office for Students reporting tool. A ‘confirmed’ case between 1 August 2020 and 24 January 2021 means one which had been identified by a positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result. From 25 January the definition of ‘confirmed’ changed to include any cases identified by positive lateral flow device (LFD) test results. See ‘Background to COVID-19 testing in HE' below.

It should be noted when interpreting the data that the number of confirmed cases reported in this release will depend on three key factors beyond the prevalence of the disease at HE settings: 

1. The extent to which providers are aware of such confirmed cases among their students and staff;
2. The number of providers making a return. This varied across the period covered with weeks unaffected by term start or end seeing between 73% and 83% of providers making a return; and
3. The management of the pandemic. In particular, where students and staff were asked not to be ‘on site’ it is likely that fewer infections would have been reported to providers. On the other hand, the departure of students for the winter break and their subsequent return in the Spring term has been accompanied by a rapid asymptomatic testing strategy. This would have led to higher detection rates, including asymptomatic symptoms than earlier in the Autumn term.

For these reasons it is expected that confirmed cases reported by HEPs are likely to be a subset of the number of positive cases in students and staff identified through NHS Test and Trace. Data for positive cases in England can be found on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK dashboard, although no breakdowns are available for HE students or staff.

Note that it is possible for students and staff to take more than one test over time and for all positive tests to be reported as ‘confirmed’ cases through the Office for Students reporting tool. It is unclear if providers de-duplicate before reporting the data via the reporting tool. No further de-duplication can be carried out once the data has been uploaded by providers. 

Background to COVID-19 testing in HE

Rapid lateral flow tests for HE in December 2020 supported a strategy to enable students wishing to travel home for the winter break to do so safely. Tests are used to identify those with coronavirus (COVID-19) who do not have symptoms. Rapid lateral flow tests have continued to be offered in HE settings in the Spring term to support safe return to in person teaching.

Until 26 January 2021 students or staff testing positive from a lateral flow test were advised to take a confirmatory polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. This requirement means that the start of rapid lateral flow testing acted to increase the ‘confirmed’ cases potentially known to providers and introduces a discontinuity in the series.

From 27 January 2021 the requirement for confirmatory PCR tests following positive LFD tests was temporarily suspended except in certain use cases:

• Self reporting LFDs
• Tests conducted on cross channel hauliers

For more information see NHS Test and Trace weekly statistics on rapid asymptomatic testing).

From the week beginning 25 January we therefore asked providers to consider a positive test from a lateral flow test to be ‘confirmed’. This introduced a second discontinuity in the series.

Download associated files

• All files (zip, 1 Kb)
• HE COVID data 2020_21 01 August to 03 February (csv, 1 Kb)
• HE COVID Higher Education tiers of restriction 2020_21 Term 1 (csv, 806 B)
• Key_stats_2 (csv, 219 B)
• Metadata guidance document

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Headline facts and figures - 2020/21

• Between 1 August 2020 and 3 February 2021, there were 72,202 confirmed cases of COVID-19 known to providers.
• There were 59,615 confirmed cases of COVID-19 known to providers for the Autumn term (defined as 1 August to 21 December).

 

Key Statistics

Autumn Term

Between the start of November and the end of the Autumn term in December, the number of confirmed student cases known to providers decreased. In the 7 days to 4 November 2020 there were 4,031 confirmed cases known compared with 740 cases in the 7 days to 16 December 2020, a decrease of 82%.  The number of confirmed cases in staff followed a broadly similar pattern, decreasing by 56% over the same period, although cases rose slightly in the final 7 day period (from 180 to 193). This period of decline in cases during November coincided with the second national lockdown (5 November to 2 December).

The rapid lateral flow tests that began for HE in December represent a discontinuity in the series. This is because individuals testing positive were still required to take a confirmatory polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, thereby potentially increasing the ‘confirmed’ cases known to providers. 

The numbers of cases known to providers during and after the student travel window may have been depressed by students being absent from their term-time address (and less likely to report any positive test).

Spring Term

Confirmed case numbers known to providers for both staff and students increased in the week to 13 January but have since declined. In the week to 13 January, there were 2,854 confirmed student cases and 1,227 confirmed staff cases. In the week to 3 February, there were 965 confirmed student and 397 confirmed staff cases, representing falls of 66% and 68% respectively. These falls have occurred in the context of the third national lockdown, which began on 6 January and the smaller number of students in scope to return to face-to-face learning in January.

Providers were asked to include any known confirmed cases reported to them during the winter break in their first Spring term return. Confirmed case numbers in the first three weeks of the Spring term are therefore inflated by this effect. See the methodology document for details.

Provider response rate was at its lowest (47%) in the 7 days to 6 January. This reflects the fact that term start dates vary from provider to provider, and not all would have resumed teaching by that date.

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About this Release

The Office for Students' COVID-19 Reporting tool

Data collection began on 20 October 2020, and a revised tool was launched in response to provider feedback on 27 October. Further revisions were made on 4 January 2021. 

In their first submission, higher education providers (HEPs) were asked to return information on all confirmed cases known to them since 1 August 2020. In subsequent submissions providers were asked to report on all confirmed cases known to them since their previous submission.

The collection of the data for the Autumn term ended on 21 December and resumed for the Spring term on 4 January 2021. This leads to a break in the collection. In their first submission of the Spring term, providers were asked to report any confirmed case known to them since their last submission at the end of the Autumn term.

Full details about data collection through the Office for Students (OfS) COVID-19 reporting tool are found in the methodology document.

‘Confirmed’ Cases

Prior to 25 January, known confirmed cases were defined only as those confirmed by a positive result from a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test. From 27 January a confirmatory PCR test was temporarily suspended as a requirement if an individual tested positive through the rapid lateral flow test programme. DfE updated the guidance accordingly, meaning data from the week beginning 25 January onwards is not directly comparable with that from preceding dates.

Providers are asked to report all such cases known to them. Where providers have operated their own testing programmes and recorded positive results, these cases will be included in these statistics. Cases where individuals do not report the results of tests to their provider (for example, those taken at community centres or at home) will also not be included.

Data Coverage

This publication is a summary of returns provided up to Thursday 4 February 2021, covering data up to 3 February.  Data collection began on 20 October 2020; however, data quality issues in the first week of collection mean that we present weekly breakdowns of confirmed cases only from 29 October 2020 (the 7 days to 4 November). Total cases reported are for the entire period since 1 August 2020.

There were 237 HEPs in scope of the data collection. This is considerably lower than the total number of providers registered with the OfS (which was 418 on 12 February 2021), mainly because further education colleges are excluded. 

Since the collection began, 89% of the 237 HEPs in scope have provided at least one response to the survey. 

Response rates for the collection have generally been good. All the response rates for the 4 weeks incorporating data for November 2020 were between 81% and 83%. Response rates then remained between 77% and 81% until the week ending 16/12/2020. For the week ending 6 January 2021, the response rate declined to 47%, likely reflecting the fact that not all providers had begun the Spring term in that week. As January progressed, the response rate increased and during recent weeks has stabilised between 76% and 78%. Response rates are discussed further in the methodology document.

In line with DfE guidance published in December not all students were in scope to return to in person learning in January. DfE estimate that roughly 20% of HE students were enrolled on courses in subject areas eligible for return.  It is difficult to estimate how many students returned to their term-time accommodation in January (or had remained over Christmas), but we expect the total to be smaller than it was before the start of the student travel window in December.

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Estimated Rates of COVID-19 in Higher Education Settings

We have attempted to estimate case rates within the student and staff population based on headcount data returned by higher education providers (see methodology document for full details). These are expressed as estimates of the weekly known cases per 100,000.  These show decreases for both students and staff across the November period. Between the start of November and the end of the Autumn term, the estimated 7 day known case rate decreased from 221.9 per 100,000 to 44.0 per 100,000; for staff, the decrease was from 122.0 per 100,000 to 58.5 per 100,000.

The noticeable fall in estimated case rates in December will be partly explained by student migration away from term-time accommodation that occurred around the student winter travel window. We are unable to adjust our case rate estimates to reflect the reduction in the on-site student population that would have occurred during this time. Further details of our estimated rates calculations are available in the methodology document.

We do not estimate case rates for students or staff during the Spring term. This is because we cannot reliably estimate how many students are engaged in in-person learning and/or are resident in their term-time accommodation. Only a subset of students are in scope for in-person learning following DfE guidance issued in December and return to term-time accommodation for other groups is likely lower than it would otherwise have been due to the national lockdown which began on 6 January.

The estimated rates for staff and students should not be directly compared with national rates published elsewhere (see ‘Other Sources of Data on COVID-19 in Higher Education Settings’) because they are calculated using only those confirmed case numbers known to providers and there remains some uncertainty around the populations of both staff and students even during the Autumn term.

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Estimates of Students self-isolating in Higher Education settings

Providers are asked to report the number of students at their institution known to be self-isolating at the time of each data return. 

In the Autumn term we asked for this information to be reported only if a provider had reported 25 or more confirmed cases in the previous 7 days (some providers voluntarily reported this information even if reporting fewer cases). In the Spring term we asked all providers to report this information. This introduces a discontinuity in the series after the Christmas break.

The number of students known to be self-isolating fell during the Autumn term. Although this might be partly explained by a fall in the number of providers reporting, it also tracks the fall in confirmed cases reported in the same period. In the week to 4 November 2020 there were approximately 19,600 students known to be self-isolating. This figure decreased to 4,000 by the end of term in the week to 16 December, a fall of 80%.

The number known to be self-isolating has varied between 2,000 and 5,000 in the Spring term. These figures should not be directly compared with figures for the Autumn term. Although more providers are now reporting on self-isolation, fewer students will be resident in their term-time address due to the restrictions on face-to-face teaching and the impact of the third national lockdown. 

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Education Tiers of Restriction in the Higher Education Sector

Higher Education Providers (HEPs) in England are subject to education tiers of restriction relating to teaching provision, ranging from Tier 1 (default position with blended learning including face-to-face) to Tier 4 (the majority of provision should be online). For a full explanation of these tiers please see the ‘Higher education: reopening buildings and campuses’ guidance. 

For the Autumn term, the proportion of HEPs reporting to be in Tier 1 was highest at the beginning of the reporting period at 65% in the 7 days to 4 November, decreasing each week to a low of 50% in the week to 16 December. The proportion of HEPs reporting to be in education tiers of restriction 2 to 4 gradually increased across the Autumn term.

We do not report HE tiers of restriction for the Spring term because the national lockdown from 6 January and updated DfE guidance for providers supersedes the tiered restrictions in place during the Autumn term.

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Other Sources of Data on COVID-19 in Higher Education Settings

This is the first time that data relating to COVID-19 cases among HE students and staff has been published as official statistics.

Other data sources (published or upcoming) relating to  COVID-19 in HE settings include:

• DfE’s COVID mass testing data in education presents the numbers of tests conducted at HE specific settings as part of the rapid lateral flow test programme launched in HE in December.
• The Department of Health and Social Care is intending to expand the NHS Test and Trace data publication to provide more information on the use of rapid asymptomatic testing (LFDs) across different settings including higher education. For more information please see the future development section of the weekly rapid asymptomatic testing publication.

These data sources present information on COVID-19 cases and positivity by age group, but HE students (or staff) cannot be identified within the age groups:

• Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK allows download of case data by 5 year age groups, including 15-19, 20-24 and 25-29. These overlap with typical HE students age ranges, but not all individuals in these age bands are HE students, and 19% of  HE students in England are older than 29 (Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)).
• The ONS Coronavirus (COVID-19 ) Infection Survey – includes the age group ‘School Year 12 to Age 24’. This also overlaps with typical HE student ages, but includes secondary school students as well as non-students in the age band. 30% of HE students in England are older than 24 (HESA).
• Public Health England's National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports include a university age cohort. As with the sources above, these age groups include non-HE students and exclude older HE students.

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Help and support

Methodology

Find out how and why we collect, process and publish these statistics

View methodology for Coronavirus (COVID-19) Reporting in Higher Education Providers.

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Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Coronavirus (COVID-19) Reporting in Higher Education Providers statistics and data:

Higher Education COVID Analysis Team

Email
HE.statistics@education.gov.uk

Telephone: Mark Walsh
07384 872 520

Press office

If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone
020 7783 8300

Public enquiries

If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:

Telephone
037 0000 2288

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