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The UK Statistics Authority has warned the department to think carefully about how data could be misinterpreted.
The Department for Education has been reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority over a “lack of clarity” in data relating to the percentage of young people going to university.
On 4 November Ed Humpherson, director general for regulation at the UKSA, wrote to the DfE’s chief data officer and statistician, Neil McIvor, about the risk of department’s participation rates in higher education release being misinterpreted.
In the letter, Humpherson confirmed the agency had investigated the September release following an inquiry about the data’s presentation, including in the DfE’s own media blog.
“Having reviewed the release I shared the concerns raised with us about the lack of clarity on what the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (HEIPR) represents and the ease with which it could therefore be misinterpreted,” Humpherson wrote.
The release outlined data on the HEIPR estimates, which show the likelihood of a young person entering higher education by the age of 30, rather than the actual percentage of young people in higher education in a given year.
But the percentage provided for the 2017-18 academic year, 50.2 per cent, was widely interpreted by national and specialist media as relating to the percentage of young people currently attending university, leading to several articles claiming that former Labour prime minister Tony Blair’s goal for 50 per cent of young people to go university had been reached.
In the letter, Humpherson added that since the UK Statistics Authority had begun to look at the release, the DfE’s media blog had since been updated and “worded more appropriately”. “We have spoken to your team about these concerns and we welcome the improvements they have made to this release to give more clarity about what the statistics do, and do not, represent,” he said.
However, he cautioned the DfE to think more carefully about how data could be misinterpreted in future. “Ahead of the next release, we would encourage the team to further consider how they can ensure these statistics are not misinterpreted by users”.
The DfE has been contacted for comment.