Abstract
Children in England who started secondary school in September 2008 have a special claim to fame: they form the first cohort obliged by law to participate in some form of officially recognised education or training until they reach their 17th birthday (Department of Children, Schools and Families [DCSF], 2007). This is because they will be 16 in 2013, the date that marks the first stage in the government’s plan to raise what it refers to as the ‘participation age’. In 2015, the second stage of the plan will require all young people to participate until they are 18. There have been calls for the school-leaving age to be extended to 18 since the end of the First World War (see Simon, 1986). The current age at which young people can leave school has stood at 16 since 1972, having risen from 14 to 15 in 1947 following the 1944 Education Act. The Act also announced that although young people could leave school at 15 and enter the labour market, they would be required to attend county colleges for the purposes of part-time ‘continuation education’. In her discussion of these proposals, Tinkler (2001, p. 79) explains that policy-makers of the time felt that anyone who left school at 15 had ‘received an education inadequate to their needs as individuals, citizens and workers’, and that ‘no wage earning occupation could in itself be a “proper” education for those who had left school at 15’. Furthermore, it was argued that young people would be happier and have richer lives if they remained in contact with an educational institution for some years after entering employment, particularly as the jobs they were likely to get might promote ‘physical, mental and moral degeneration’.
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Notes
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The 29% of 17-year-olds not participating in education and training may well be considered, in line with definitions in other parts of this book, as ‘dropouts’ in other countries, recognising though the difficulties that this concept presents in the English context, difficulties discussed in this chapter. The rates may be even higher than those suggested here because no account is taken of actual completion of education and training (Editors’ note).
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Source: DCSF Education and Training Statistics for the United Kingdom, 2007, Table 3.10.
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Source: The activities and experiences of 18-year-olds: England & Wales, 2006. Table B. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000695/SFR47–2006.pdf
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Source: DCSF: GCE/VCE A/AS and Equivalent Examination Results in England, 2006/07, Tables 2, 2m, 2f. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000755/
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Source: DCSF Education and Training Statistics for the United Kingdom, 2007, Table 3.5
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The notion of ‘not in education, employment or training (NEET)’, though, can be used to identify those within a cohort who are no longer in school and do not hold upper secondary or equivalent qualifications and can be considered ‘dropouts’ as defined in other countries. This could be applied at an age, such as 17-year-olds, as in Table 5.1 of this chapter (Editors’ note).
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Sullivan, A., Unwin, L. (2011). Towards Compulsory Participation in England. In: Lamb, S., Markussen, E., Teese, R., Polesel, J., Sandberg, N. (eds) School Dropout and Completion. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9763-7_6
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