Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey consultation: Chartered ABS response

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HESA recently conducted a survey on proposals to make changes to the DLHE survey, recognising that while universities have adapted to support students in meeting the challenges they face, the data collection on employment and other life outcomes following higher education has not changed substantially since 2002.

In the view of the Chartered ABS, the following areas need to be addressed:

  1. Student self-evaluation is important but difficult to ensure a true picture emerges. Most students do not recognise the benefits of their university education until much later in their careers, identifying what they feel they lack and expected to have developed at university would be a better measure.
  2. Carrying out the survey only 6 months after graduation is too soon as it often takes much longer to find employment and if evaluations on skills usage or deficit are to be included, students need to have been employed for a reasonable period of time in order to give well informed answers.
  3. It should be incumbent on HESA to share with each institution all data they collect from their students.
  4. We are in favour of continuing to collect graduate motivations for further study, employer information and other work based learning.
  5. Graduate self-assessment on whether their work plans are “on-track” is seen as being very valuable although difficult to obtain as the question is often considered as being very personal.
  6. Only data that will really help universities offer a better experience to their students should be collected.

Download the full response here.