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Staying on at school to 18 'can criminalise pupils'
Last updated at 23:37pm on 30.07.07
Forcing pupils to stay in education until they are 18 may casue 'mass truancy'
Forcing teenagers to stay in education until they are 18 threatens to cause 'mass truancy' and criminalise thousands, a teachers' leader has warned.
Geraldine Everett called on Gordon Brown to rethink flagship plans to fine youngsters or even send them to prison if they drop out before their 18th birthdays.
Mrs Everett, chairman of the Professional Association of Teachers, insisted that young people should continue to have a choice over whether they go straight into work or carry on in education or job training.
Raising the education leaving age from 16 would merely 'prolong the agony' of school for many youngsters.
Within months, the Prime Minister plans to bring forward legislation to raise the leaving age to 17 from 2013, and 18 from 2015.
He believes the measure is necessary because unskilled jobs are drying up, leaving thousands on the scrapheap at 16.
There are currently 120,000 16 and 17-year-olds classed as being 'not in education, employment or training', or 'Neets'. A further 80,000 are in jobs but not receiving any training.
Under plans published earlier this year, pupils face being issued with Asbo-style ' attendance orders' if they drop out of school or training before they turn 18.
Ultimately they face criminal sanctions ranging from £50 fines to community service and even imprisonment.
But Mrs Everett said: 'Extending the school leaving age is a potential minefield if not handled sensitively.
'Here is a government that has toyed with the idea of lowering the voting age to 16 in order to promote a greater sense of citizenship among our young people.
Yet it proposes to extend compulsory education or training to 18 to compel the already disaffected to, in their perception, prolong the agony.'
Such a measure risked causing them to be 'further disenchanted and alienated'.
Mrs Everett added: 'To make them conscripts is likely to reinforce failure, leading to even greater dissatisfaction.
'Enforcement could lead to mass truancy, further disruption to other learners and staff, maybe even needless criminalisation if "enforcement measures" are imposed.
'Make provision compulsory by all means and provide appropriate opportunities for the Neets, but allow young adults some choice between work and/or education and training.'
Raising the leaving age marks the biggest education shake-up since 1972 when the compulsory leaving age was last changed, from 15 to 16. It will entail a major school and college building programme to accommodate an additional 15,000 sixth-formers by 2015, plus 44,000 college students.
Mrs Everett, giving a keynote address at PAT's annual conference in Harrogate, said that the uptake of post-16 courses would increase without the need for enforcement measures if nurseries and schools were given more cash to focus on the basics early on.
'Then, with the right curriculum or training programme on offer, taught in the right way, in the right surroundings, voluntary uptake beyond 16 is likely to increase,' she said.
Schools Minister Jim Knight said: 'What this motion actually opposes is giving young people the opportunities, choice and support they deserve.
'It is only right that we are looking at all options to keep young people engaged in education or training until 18, whether at school, training or in a job.'
Reader views (1)
Someone with whom I went to school made an agreement with the headmaster to leave on his 16th birthday because he was being so disruptive in lessons and plainly didn't want to be there. He went off, became a printer, and when all of the print works switched to digital he went on training courses, he set up all of the network and ended up as the IT manager, he's currently earning £60k a year working in IT with no qualifications. Making him stay at school would have meant that he became more disruptive and everyone else would have suffered but instead he left and made something of himself.
- Trevor Roll, London
