Colleges recruiting at age 14?

I personally think this is a pretty good idea.

There is, and always will be, a group of students who hate school. And as the age of schooling increases, this problem will only get worse so NEETs aren't going to go away.

Colleges can be part of a solution, more engaging, interesting and "adult", helping some of students who otherwise would become the next set of NEETs.

It isn't right for everyone, but I'm sure it can work for some to make it worthwhile.

NEET

NEET
Rightly, a lot of attention to the ever increasing and if I may personally add, embarassing problem of NEETs. I've written before about the lost generation, I was a child of the 60's, looking for my first job in the mid 80's when jobs were rarer than soberly dressed young ladies having a glass of Perrier in the Newcastle Bigg Market on a Friday night.

A few of my friends became NEETs, it is very easy to slip over the borderline. All it takes is a lost job, a gap in getting another one and that's it, a young person with no money, no education and no prospects. And I don't think that leaving it a year before action is taken is at all acceptable. The best time to deal with a problem is when the problem occurs, not a year later.

I don't have a solution, but I do know that it is the biggest problem in education at the moment and it would be top of my priority list.

Scare stories from LSC

Easter brings the conference season and the end of the Government Financial Year together so suddenly we see lots reports and press activity which all seem to be bringing forward scare stories such as

LSC promises things it then can't deliver

Diplomas dropped because the LSC has run out of money

No space or money for sixth formers

I think that at the moment, I'm treating all these things as scare stories.  Many are forced on us because the LSC has to do something by 31st March when in reality it is nowhere near having the numbers on which to base things.Or the Government announcing 50,000 students on diplomas when clearly that's just an estimate.  

Lets just wait a week or two and see what happens after the next bank holiday in May before jumping to conclusions.

Publicity Activity in 14-19

Even the local paper is getting in on the act.
A two page "advertsiing feature" on Dilomas in the TES last week.
Today I see a full page on the local 14-19 partnership in Sundelrand launced in the Newcastle Journal! Lots of cous on NEETS and on the Diplomas as you'd expect.
I thought that Iwas good at keeping up with things but wow - there's so much to keep up with.

Astonishing press coverage of 16 year old school leavers

In todays Daily Mail.
p12 - pupils in big schools are doomed to failure - a focus on those 78000 pupils who leave without even the basic qualifications.
p19 - tories pledge to get Jeremy Kyle generation into jobs - main focus of the story is dissaffected young men and the growth of NEETS
p24 - head of eton calls for overhaul of GCSE - do 6 instead of 16 plus a range of other interetsing stuff. You don't have to test and examine everything.
p29 - the Hair and Beauty diploma that doesn't actually involve cutting hair - comment of the new diplomas.

Four stories, all focussed on 16 year olds and with a clear tendency towards fising the problems of low achievement.

NEETs

Copy of Key Skills post.
Ofsted say there are 200,000 16-18 year olds not working nor at college. That's a lot more than I thought and if my calcuations are right it's about 15% of the total. Given that around 55% of students get 5+A*-C GCSE passes or equivalent at school that leaves about 30% going to College still looking to get a level 2 award.

The Government wants to get 90% of all 16-18 year olds with level 2 qualifications. Not only do we need to improve the achievement of those at college but we also need to get at least half of those NEETs into college and working through the levels.

Which brings me to another point. Schools seem to have no ongoing responsibility for the kids they have failed - many of whom will become NEETs. There's abigger picture here that everyone seems to acknowledge but there's not a lot being done about it. Maybe it's time for schools to carry some additional respoinsibility beyond age 16.