3. Full-time education
You are generally treated as being in full-time education if your course is described as such by your educational establishment, although there can be exceptions, eg you have been granted exemptions from parts of your course or your course is not a traditional university-type course. Even if your course is not described as full time, you will be treated as in full-time education if the course involves supervised study of 21 hours a week or more.
If you have deferred your studies to care for someone, and have the agreement from your educational establishment to do so, you may be considered to be no longer actively pursuing a full-time course of study, in which case you can be entitled to carer’s allowance. Relevant factors that are considered here include: the length of your break, whether or not you can still access funding for your studies, and whether you can access learning materials.
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