Young people and education

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has published a report on 16 to 18 year old participation in education and training.

Key points include that:

• The Department for Education is still learning how best to use its resources to prevent young people falling out of education, training or employment at 16;
• The Department for Education and local authorities have more to do to identify over 100,000 young people who are off the radar, despite local authorities having a statutory duty to track the activity of 16 to 18 year olds. Nationally seven percent of young people’s activity is unknown and in some areas this proportion is as high as 20 percent;
• The key intervention for the hardest-to-reach young people, the Youth Contract, is ending in 2016 and the Department for Education has no plans to replace it;
• Longer and better quality apprenticeships are welcome, but it will also be important to guard against increasing barriers to young people and smaller firms participating;
• Many local authorities do not help 16 to 18 year olds with the costs of travelling to school or college, which means that some young people are disadvantaged; and
• Despite many different approaches over the years, most young people still do not receive the careers advice they need.

To download the full report visit www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmpubacc/707/707.pdf.

The Local Government Association and Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion have published a report on achievement and retention in post 16 education.

Key points include that:

• Latest figures show 178,100 16 to 18 year olds failed to complete all or some of the post-16 qualifications they started in 2012/13, including apprenticeships;
• There were just under 75,000 withdrawals from individual AS Levels in 2012/13, a withdrawal rate of 9.4 percent of all AS Levels;
• There were around 22,000 withdrawals from individual A Levels in the same academic year, 4.8 percent of the total;
• Approximately 16,000 students from state-funded schools withdrew from all their aims they started in 2012/13, around 2.4 percent of the total;
• Around 13 percent of AS Level entries did not result in a passing grade in 2012/13;
• Despite significant increases in apprenticeship success rates in recent years, around one in four apprenticeships started by 16 to 18 year olds are not successfully completed, around 24,000 apprenticeships;
• The estimated cost to the Exchequer of post-16 learning aims that were started but not successfully completed are approximately £814 million in 2012/13, which represents around 12 percent of the funding allocated to provision for 16 to 18 year olds; and
• This figure has fallen across schools, further education and apprenticeships in the last two years, with total costs to the Exchequer down by around £164 million (17 percent) since 2010/11.

To download the full report visit www.local.gov.uk/documents/10180/11431/Achievement+and+retention+in+post-16+education%2C%20February+2015.