Part 1: Skills and Education for Work Chapter 3: Lifelong Learning Section 16: Lifelong learning: amendment of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017
This section makes amendments to HERA 2017 to amend the definition of "higher education course" and to make other provision as to the regulation of modular study.
	Subsection (2) amends section 9 (the mandatory transparency condition for certain providers) which creates a duty on registered higher education providers to provide information to the OfS about offers and acceptances, completion rates and attainment. This amendment is intended to reduce the administrative burden on providers, by ensuring information sharing and/or publication requirements do not apply any more onerously in relation to modules than to full courses.
	Subsection (3) amends section 83 subsection (1) of HERA 2017 to substitute a new definition of higher education course to mean a course of any description mentioned in Schedule 6 to the Education Reform Act 1988, or a module of such a course (if it is not undertaken as part of such a course).
	Subsection (4) further amends section 85, to clarify the two categories of higher education course for the purpose of Part 1 of HERA 2017 are full courses and modules of full courses where they are undertaken other than as part of full courses. Together with the amendments to 83(1) these clarify that for the purposes of HERA 2017 there are two categories of higher education course: a) full courses and b) modules of full courses, when taken other than as part of those courses and have the explicit consequence of applying the OfS’s regulatory powers to modular study.