Adding learners to a course
Every time a provider enrols a new learner onto a course, a new learner record will need to be created in order to submit an ILR and receive funding.
Depending on the provider, they may add new learners throughout the year as learners roll on/off. If the provider enrolls cohorts of learners then large numbers of learners will be added at once.
Adding a learner is a critical journey within the service. It is both the most common action and the most consequential in terms of funding. It is therefore essential to make this process straightforward and efficient.
The process
The add a learner journey can be broken down into three stages:
1. Find unique learner number (ULN)
The ULN is a critical piece of data that is a learner’s identifier within DfE. It can be thought of as similar to a driving licence number. However, collecting it from users is difficult for the following reasons:
Not all providers will know their learner’s ULN.
Very few learners will be able to provide it.
Within the learning records service (the central repository of this data) it’s not uncommon for learners to have more than 1 ULN number.
Only learners who have been in education since March 2013 will have been issued one.
There are data protection concerns around providers being able to view the data of learners within the learning records service.
Within this part of the journey, users will be able to search the learning records service to find their learner. There are two methods of searching:
Search by demographics
A user can search using a learners,
given name
family name
date of birth
sex (There has been a lot of feedback from the sector that this is not in keeping with how they collect data from their learners)
postcode (This can be problematic as it is unlikely to have been kept up to date)
By correctly matching these search criteria, a learner’s ULN (if it exists within the learning records service) will be returned.
Search by ULN
A user can search using a learners
The learning records service will validate the search criteria if they match correctly. It can also return more information about the learner such as their date of birth, sex and postcode.
2. Add learner to course
Once the learner’s ULN has been returned or validated by the learning records service, we then ask the user to add them to a course. We do this because until we know what type of course the learner is on, we do not know,
3. Add learner information
Once we know what type of course the learner is on, we then collect information about the learner’s
personal details
contact information
prior attainment
disability and health
employment status
