General Article Could lengthening post-16 education just be delaying unemployment?

Topic Selected: Education
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David Kingman reports on the recent warning from Ofsted that too many young people are falling ‘inevitably’ into ‘NEET’ status once they leave compulsory post-16 education.

Following changes to the law which have been implemented by the Coalition Government, young people in England now have to remain in compulsory education until the age of 17, rising to 18 from summer 2015. In theory, this should be a very good thing for them: in the modern ‘knowledge economy’, the more education you have the better off you are likely to be in the long term.

However, the schools inspectorate Ofsted has recently warned that for young people who are already struggling at school, keeping them there for an additional two years may simply be postponing their ‘inevitable’ transition towards ‘NEET’ status – government shorthand for young people who are Not in Employment, Education or Training. So is more schooling necessarily such a good thing?

Uncertain future

Ofsted have argued that it is ‘simply not en...

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