Funding Welsh medium higher education
HEFCW funds Welsh medium provision both through its annual recurrent teaching grant to higher education institutions (HEIs) and funding to support the National Development Plan.
Our teaching grant to HEIs includes a Welsh medium premium, or extra payment, for enrolments to Welsh medium courses or modules. The premium acknowledges the extra costs of delivering through Welsh.
In 2005 we commissioned London Economics to carry out a study to determine more precisely the additional costs that can be associated with delivery of courses and modules through Welsh. Their final report was presented to a sector seminar in September 2006.
Following the seminar we consulted with the sector on some minor changes to arrangements for the Welsh medium premium and updating our guidance (Circular W06/56HE). We published the outcome of the consultation and revised guidance in September 2007 (Circular W07/36HE). There is also information on premium allocations in the Recurrent Grant circular which HEFCW publishes each year.
HEFCW funds on a credit basis, with a unit of funding per credit. The premium is equivalent to an additional 34% on the unit of funding for each eligible credit.
The funding supporting the Strategic Framework and National Development Plan includes funding which HEFCW has made available for a number of years, namely, development funding and an allocation to the Centre for Welsh Medium Higher Education.
Following the strategy produced by the original HEFCW Welsh Medium Provision Steering Group in 2004, the Welsh Assembly Government approved the use of the HEFCW Reconfiguration and Collaboration Fund to provide funding for the Welsh Medium Postgraduate Scholarship and Fellowship Schemes, the staffing and infrastructure of the Centre for Welsh Medium Higher Education and budgets for the Centre to work with the sector on staff development and marketing activity.
With the establishment of the Strategic Framework and the Welsh Medium Higher Education Sector Group, these schemes and activities have been incorporated within the National Development Plan. There is earmarked funding within the Assembly’s One Wales budget for higher education to allow this work to continue and, particularly on the development of provision and institutional capacity building, to be strengthened.
| Centre for Welsh Medium Higher Education | £455,000 |
| Staffing and infrastructure | |
| (Institutional subscriptions) | £98,000 |
| Provision development and capacity building | £685,000 |
| Marketing | £90,000 |
| Staff Development | £80,000 |
| Scholarship and Fellowship Schemes | £819,000 |
| Total | £2,227,000 |
