I think the numbers here mask a situation that is much much worse than you say. The numbers you need are youth employment figures, you know, actual jobs; they will be a lot lower than they were ten ans 20 years ago. Lots of the kids in EET are in useless schemes that will not provide a lifetime of employment, just hiding the gummit's embarrassment.
There is a career left for those that leave school without qualifications ans they know they are qualified for it: benefit dependency, and compared to low paid work it pays quite well. It is even attractive enough to make trying for an education pointless to those who have concluded that is the path that is set for them. Educational failure can have a number of causes: bad teaching, bad curriculum or kids who don't want to learn. When the welfare system has trained them to believe education is pointless, it should not be surprising that they don't learn; it is a vicious circle, a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Marksany says "There is a career left for those that leave school without qualifications ans they know they are qualified for it: benefit dependency, and compared to low paid work it pays quite well" add some low level criminality and it allows a reasonable lifestyle if you don't expect much.
This is abbeted by the schools target culture which encourages them to concentrate resources upon the middle band of pupils ( sorry, Students ) who might make marginal improvements in their grades and thus boost the schools performance. Which means they ignore the low and high achievers equally.
I was "bright" at school, and you know what? I would have had a celebration if, at the end of year 9 (end of Key Stage 3, beginning of GCSE years) the kids who were never going to be academic had been scraped off into a Key Skills group rather than forced through ten GCSE subjects they had no interest in nor aptitude for.
My GCSE results were very respectable, but I believe my education (as opposed to my exam-target-hitting) was impaired by having to share all my classes with a handful (in fact 14% sounds about right) of oiks who did not want to be there and were determined to disrupt it for everyone else.
Cameron needs to be talking in this kind of language. Labour have FAILED and looking at these figures makes this even more apparent.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
You missed IMHO one important reason why teenagers do not work. That is because it pays better than working. I have a lodger who works and lives in a small room a friend of hers decided to be a pro single mum - she has a flat of her own which she does not to share.
Why work ?
marksany-
"I think the numbers here mask a situation that is much much worse than you say. The numbers you need are youth employment figures, you know, actual jobs; they will be a lot lower than they were ten ans 20 years ago. Lots of the kids in EET are in useless schemes that will not provide a lifetime of employment, just hiding the gummit's embarrassment."
I'm sure you're right about this - I didn't have time to look up all the figs for this post, but I will do so and post again
some english bloke-
"This is abbeted by the schools target culture which encourages them to concentrate resources upon the middle band of pupils ( sorry, Students ) who might make marginal improvements in their grades and thus boost the schools performance. Which means they ignore the low and high achievers equally."
Spot on - it's called triage, and we've blogged about it quite a bit.
High stakes published tests always do this, which is why most of them need to be binned - especially for the youngest children. Teachers should simply revert to their traditional methods of private testing.
Mary
You have my sympathy. I am increasingly aware of my extreme good fortune in getting schooled before the grammars went.
David-
absolutely agree.
Benefits have to be cut, especially those that encourage single motherhood.
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