Open Data

Full Load Equivalent (FLE) enrolment within the Alberta post-secondary education system

Description

The set of statistics in these datasets describe the Full Load Equivalent (FLE) by each institution and academic year within Alberta's publicly funded post-secondary education system. FLE is a measure used to allow for comparable calculations across different institutions, across different programs. The FLE is measured by taking the load of the learner enrolled (instructional hours + practicum hours) and dividing by the full load of that program. This results in a comparable metric to be able to use across the system. The FLE calculation is consistent for every institution and program. The data tables presented are related to enrolments in approved programs at publicly funded post-secondary institutions within Alberta. Separate data files exist focusing on the system level, or for subsets that focus on either international or self-identified Indigenous learners.

Updated

February 16, 2024

Tags
FLE enrolment Indigenous students LERS Learner and Enrolment Reporting System full load equivalent enrolment international students post-secondary enrolment post-secondary institutions student enrolment
Resources

Title and Dataset Information

Alternative Title

Publicly Funded Post-secondary Enrolments - FLEs

Date Modified

2024-02-16

Update Frequency

Annual

Publisher / Creator Information

Creator
Advanced Education
Publisher

Advanced Education

Subject Information

Topic
Education - Adult and Continuing Education - Post-Secondary and Skills Training Indigenous Peoples
Start Date

2013-08-01

End Date

2023-07-31

Resource Dates

Date Created

2019-01-07

Date Added to catalogue

2018-11-26T22:12:34.339501

Date Issued

2019-01-07

Date Modified

2024-02-16

Audience information

Educators General Public Indigenous Peoples Students

Language

English (Canadian)

Identifiers

Usage / Licence

Usage Considerations

  • See the Dictionary tab within the file for definitions and additional context related to the data.

  • All data in this document has been sourced from Alberta Advanced Education's Learner and Enrolment Reporting System (LERS).

  • The values in each file focus on enrolments in provincially-approved programming at publicly-funded post-secondary institutions in Alberta. Separate data files exist focusing on the system level, or for subsets that focus on either International or self-identified Indigenous learners.

  • The Banff Centre does not offer standardized approved programming and therefore enrolments at The Banff Centre are NOT included in these datasets.

  • Enrolments are reported by Academic Year, which for most institutions is May 1 - April 30 or July 1 - June 30.

  • Reporting changes at institutions may impact longitudinal analysis. Caution should be used when comparing year to year values. To ensure longitudinal analysis, system level reporting changes have been incorporated into this file and therefore, values may not align to previous versions of this file. Context related to institutional reporting changes that may impact values within all files related to this measure (found in the Dictionary tab under the Reporting Changes by Year section).

  • Both the University of Alberta (UA) and Northern Alberta Institute of Technology went through a reporting cleanup where the full load values of their programming (UA was undergraduate level only) were standardized.  These reporting changes created an artificial increase in reported FLE which is not proportionate to the actual enrolment changes.  Any longitudinal FLE analysis should be used with caution for the system, as well as the affected sectors and institutions.

  • Grande Prairie Regional College updated its name to Northwestern Polytechnic and moved from the CCC sector to the Poly Sector. For longitudinal reporting purposes, the cubes will use the new name and sector allocations.

  • Lakeland College and Northwestern Polytechnic have changed their LERS reporting period to align with their updated fiscal year. This resulted in their LERS reporting year moving from July 1st to June 30th to a May 1st to April 30th reporting period. As a result, Spring 2022 enrolments have been reported in both 2021‐22 and 2022‐23 LERS reporting periods. Due to this change, caution should be used for longitudinal analysis.

  • In 2021-22 and 2022-23, Portage College included enrolments related to public-private partnership (PPP) agreements. The inclusion of these enrolments results in significant increases in both FLE and learners reported in these years. The vast majority of international learners reported at Portage College are due to these PPP agreements and are taught outside the college. With the college teaching out these programs, it is expected that these enrolments will decline over the next year.

  • All values for Indigenous learners are related to those that self-identify at time of application, and are a subset of the total system. These values are anecdotally lower than actual Indigenous learners.

  • All values related to international learners are a subset of the total system. International learners are related to foreign learners that are granted permission by the federal government (i.e. through a visitor visa, study permit or other status) to study at a publicly-funded post-secondary institution in Alberta.

Licence

Open Government Licence - Alberta

Contact

Contact Name

System Data and Analytics Unit, Advanced Education

Contact Email

ae.odi-alcp@gov.ab.ca