Student Training or Education till 18

Guardian Unlimited: Teens face £50 fines for not attending class


The government wants to introduce "education Asbos" and fixed penalty fines for teenagers who refuse to stay in education or training until the age of 18, the education secretary, Alan Johnson, announced today.

The punitive measures are outlined in the government's green paper, Raising expectations: staying in education and training post-16, which seeks to raise the compulsory school leaving age to 18. If the proposals become law they would apply to pupils who are due to start secondary school in September next year.

Releasing the green paper, the education secretary described the plans as " very, very major radical reforms".

Under the proposals, local authorities would share £476m to be spent on offering guidance and support to young people and creating a register of all 16 to 18-year-olds containing details of their training or education.

While I agree with the principle of education till the age of 18 I feel uncomfortable with how the Government is proposing to do it.
The basic principle is that between the age of 16 to 18 the student would have to be in sixth form, college, work based training or face a £50 fine, then if that didn't bring them into line an attendance order (do this or else order) and in turn if they breach that they could face a community sentence or a greater fine.

The concept of criminalising students if they refuse to attend between the ages of 16 to 18 seems harsh, then again we could view pre-16 education in a similar way as a student under 16 who refuses to go to school can be given an attendance order.

The Government might also be over estimating the capacity of educational institutions in areas with high populations to offer places to this additional intake of 16 to 18 students.

A few years ago my sixth form had reached near enough its capacity (not bad for a school that was designed to be temporary), now I hear they've got an even larger sixth form intake meaning they can't fit them into the main sixth form room.

Fair dues to them sixth form centres and colleges have had the bright idea of sharing courses and thus capacity, so one school that has better business facilities will provide the business course for the area and the school that has the better sports facilities will provide sports courses for the area, which in turn shows that while static capacity has been reached in some areas a dynamic capacity can take many more, which I believe is the future of 16 to 18 A-Level qualifications.

I think in order for the Governments plans to work, steering away from the criminalising aspect of it for now; they need to promote Apprenticeships or rather Modern Apprenticeships as they are called now with businesses and promote a wider range of initiatives so student have a greater array of paths to choose from.

Another aspect of Government proposals is to do away with the EMA initiative, which sees students whose parents earn under a certain amount receive between £10 to £30, I don’t agree with doing away with it completely, I’d like to see that only those who actually need the funding receive it, possibly making them apply on an individual basis.

You guys get to leave at 16 pretty cool Can anyone tell me what the requirements are for graduation in the UK? Could anyone explain the GCSE system to me?

I've also heard there is a movemnet to replace the GCSE's with a diploma.

Originally posted by danwild6

You guys get to leave at 16 pretty cool

Can anyone tell me what the requirements are for graduation in the UK?

Depends on what you mean by graduation, education has vaguely three basic graduation levels, GCSE, A-Level and University.

GCSE's are for 14 to 16, after which currently students can leave education if they so wish and fight their way through the big wide world.

A-Level's are for 16 to 18, this an optional education and student don't have to do it if they don't want to.

University is basically the same as college level in America from what I understand, though I don't really know much about the American education system, University in the UK takes on average about 3 years and you graduate with a degree.

Of course the system isn't as simple as that, colleges for example can take any number of forms, from sixthform colleges (16+) to Universities that are made up of several colleges, to them being just general places of education for 14+.



[edit on 26-3-2007 by UK Wizard]

I think that the idea of raising the education leaving age is a good one in theory and has very good intentions - far too many kids drop out of education to do absolutely nothing (there's a special name for these but I can't remember it right now). Whether it would actually work, I don't know. I'm currently doing a teacher training course for Secondary+ and I know there are pupils who just aren't interested in sixth forms. I know that part of the idea is that those interested in particular jobs would train on the job and go in to college once(?) a week, but this seems like it would be pretty difficult to enforce and keep track of.

I think that GCSEs and equivalents will need to be made less of as well to make the post-16 qualifications seem more important. I remember from when I was at school that GCSEs seemed like the most important qualification you will ever gain, and they still play a part in careers - ie you can't join a PGCE course for teacher training without GCSE grades, despite having A levels and a degree.

Academia isn't for everyone..It never has been.
I think they should bring back the vocational colleges. What Further education used to be.
Let those who aren't academically minded but are skilled, take on a trade.

I think part of the plan is to either keep kids in academic education until they're 18 (i.e. college and A Levels) or have them do some kind of job training/vocational courses/apprenticeships (I imagine this is things like plumbing, engineering, brick laying, carpentry and so forth - might lead to a change in university courses so people who take vocational courses can study these subjects at degree level or some equivalent?) and so on so they do have a choice as to which path they follow.

Does seem to offer plenty of choice regardless of what young people want to do when they leave education.

If everyone ends up with academic, vocational and technical qualifications coming out of their ears, then eventually we will end up with an embarrassingly over qualified and disilusioned underclass of road sweepers, bog cleaners, and factory operatives.

I am actually for changes to our education system, to bring them up to the standards set by Europe, Japan etc. But there are dangers and side effects of having a highly educated population.

What we need is not a forced prescription of education, but better opportunities and facilities for young people to learn trades and skills, either in a school/college environment, or on the job as an apprentice.
And also the freedom to choose a path, be it leaving school at 16 to be a labourer or work in Mcdonalds, or studying until mid 20's to become a doctor or a barrister. All these jobs and everything in between need doing, and it makes no sense to force people through hoops that have neither the desire nor the aptitude.

There are aspects of this one that are indeed less obvious and some are pretty tricky.

No matter what happens we will still need, as a society, people doing the less glamourous and mundane jobs.

Vocational qualifications must be part of this and if we can insist our kids stay on at school until 16 I can't really see any reason why they can't be required to either stay in education or work-based training (or some sort of actual work?) until 18.
Particularly as they now offer assistance for lower income families to do so.

But I have never been one to go with the devalued skills line, raising the numbers from 5 to 100 qualified and skilled brain surgeons or Doctors or whatever doesn't devalue those actual brain surgery or Doctoring skills, they remain extremely valuable and worthwhile skills in our society - even if the 'supply and demand' situation of those individuals as sheer 'labour' may make those skills slightly less lucrative in cash terms but that is hardly quite the same thing.

(Can't say as I've noticed the ludicrous - and growing - glut of lawyers in our society denting their costs much tho.)

I'm reminded of the history of the old Guildes and in some respects Trades Unions - but in this case it's largely middle class people moaning about it and looking to restrict the supply of labour to ensure higher earnings, partly I suspect, because the various trades people that they need and who used to come cheap now no longer do......a lot of this is about wanting cheaper trades-people, IMO.

.......and meantime whilst being happy to use the cheaper guys from the new entrant countries of the EU there's also a little nationalistic guff chucked in about 'our' kids/people too.

I'm just waiting to hear complaints that 'they're taking our women as well as our jobs'!.

As anyone now looking for a builder, plasterer, plumber, electrician etc etc knows those jobs already command high wages thanks to the skills being in short supply.

'The little people being kept in & knowing their place' is not exactly a new debate - we had something similar with universal education!

IMO we need to lift our eyes and view the wider horizons involved in this matter.

A high skills and high qualification society strikes me as nothing less than essential if our relatively low-resource country is to make it's way in todays highly (and increasingly) competitive world.



[edit on 13-4-2007 by sminkeypinkey]

i think that education should be to 18 who can actually say what they want to do at 16 and who at 16 is mature enough to make important decisions really i know when i left school over here in england at 16 i was bewildered i went to the wrong college and the wrong course for me and now im paying for hose mistakes now.

the education system works like this

14-16 GCSE
16-18 a-level (sixth form)
16-25 apprentiship ( equal to GCSE/a-level depends)(college/sixth form)
16-60 first diploma(equal to 5 c to a grade GCSEs)(college)
16-60 national diploma( equal to a leval)(college/university)
16-60 foundation (equal to a-level and national diploma)(college/university)
16-60 GNVQ (equal to 1 GCSE)(college)
16-60 NVQ (lower than GCSE mainly for factory workers who have no qualifications)(in association with a college and work place)
18-60 diplomas (university)

hope that helps

Originally posted by kerrichin

16-18 a-level (sixth form)
18-60 diplomas (university)

Who told you diplomas where only for 18-60? I was once told of a student studying a diploma at Leeds University who was 86! Also there is a woman on my A levels course who is nearly 70 and several people in their late 20's. I understand most school 6th forms don't take on older applicants, but another friend from college is studying German at a school sixth form, which is not her old school, who is almost 20!

On Topic - As for raising the age of leaving education, I think it's a good idea. Many people leave school after GCSE's simply because they can, and find themselves working at Morrison’s (or the classier Sainsbury’s) for the rest of their lives. Although I could see it having an impact on the quality of education as the usually small A level groups will grow taking away the more personal environment.

[edit on 11/4/07 by FudgeStix]

Who told you diplomas where only for 18-60? I was once told of a student studying a diploma at Leeds University who was 86!

sorry throught id put a plus in because what i meant was 18-60+ but i must of missed it or not pressed the key proberly so sorry again

ive corrected it for you



14-16 GCSE
16-18 a-level (sixth form)
16-25 apprentiship ( equal to GCSE/a-level depends)(college/sixth form)
16-60+ first diploma(equal to 5 c to a grade GCSEs)(college)
16-60+ national diploma( equal to a leval)(college/university)
16-60+ foundation (equal to a-level and national diploma)(college/university)
16-60+ GNVQ (equal to 1 GCSE)(college)
16-60+ NVQ (lower than GCSE mainly for factory workers who have no qualifications)(in association with a college and work place)
18-60+ diplomas (university)

[edit on 12-4-2007 by kerrichin]

I think the 'work' element in this proposal has been or is being overlooked.

This is not about forcing everyone into remaining in the education system until 18, there is specific mention of work and work based training in this proposal.