NEET statistics

In the news this weekend was lots of comment about NEETs. Government stats say that around 9% are NEET, LSC says it's double that.

Let's first look at how the Government counts. They exclude anyone who has been on any training at all in the previous 4 months (I think but I may be wrong) as in traiing. So even if a youngster goes to a one day course about writing a CV run by Job Centre Plus, then they are not NEET. So I think the LSC is probably right as most sensible people would say that someone is training means someone at College or School or in an Apprenticeship.

The bigger issue is the Government targets. They want 85% of 19 years to have a level 2 qualification by 2013, 80% by 2011. This actually means getting all the NEETs through a level 2 in just 5 years - now that's a big big challenge and I don't see how it can be done given the resources at the moment.

Unless of course the statistical counting changes ......