'Neets' face risk of an early death

Youngsters who become "Neet" - not in education, employment or training - face not just difficulties and hardship, but "real dangers and a downward spiral" which can lead to them dying "very, very young", Jon Coles, director-general of schools at the Department for Children, Schools and Families said.

Mr Coles said there is a "social cost" of being outside the education and training system.

Citing anecdotal research carried out in a city in the North of England he had recently visited, Mr Coles said: "They had looked back a decade and they had examined what had happened to the long-term Neets of 10 years ago, where they were now and what had become of them.

"They found a number of interesting things, but they had found one profoundly shocking thing, which I still find profoundly shocking today, and that is that of their long-term Neet of 10 years ago, those who had been outside the system for a long period of time, whether because they were permanently excluded or simply because they had dropped out at the end of compulsory schooling and had not got into anything else, 15% of those young people of 10 years ago were dead by the time that the research was being done."

Mr Coles said he hoped the figures were not representative of the whole country. But he added that for those youngsters, being Neet had taken them "into a real danger and into a downward spiral which ultimately led to them dying very, very young." It proves education can be a "matter of life or death," he said.

Mr Coles's comments, first reported in the Times Educational Supplement, were made at an education forum in central London last month.

According to the latest Government figures, more than one in 10 (10.3%) of 16 to 18-year-olds were considered Neet in 2008, up from 9.7% in 2007. In addition, the number of 16 to 24-year-old Neets has soared as young people struggle to find a job in the recession. There are now 935,000 16 to 24-year-old Neets according to quarterly figures published in June, up from 810,000 for the same quarter last year.

According to the Youth Cohort Study, 1% of 16 to 18-year-olds are long-term Neets. Evidence from the British Birth Cohort Study suggests youngsters who are Neet between the ages of 16 to 18 are at greater risk of depression and poor health by the age of 21.

A DCSF spokeswoman said the research could not be seen as representative of the whole country. But she added: "It is clear that young people who are Neet are at greater risk of poor health and negative outcomes in later life, which is one of the key reasons we see reducing the Neet numbers as such a high priority."