School leaving age to rise to 18

[LakerBlood]

<font size="2">A law raising the school leaving age to 18 in England will be included in the Queen's Speech on Tuesday. </font></p>

<font size="2">The move aims to tackle the problem of young people leaving education without qualifications or workplace skills. </font></p>

<font size="2">Schools Secretary Ed Balls told GMTV the "radical proposal" was needed because too many people were leaving school at 16 without qualifications. </font></p>

<font size="2">Under the plans pupils would not have to continue with academic lessons but would be required to receive training. </font></p>

<font size="2">'Skills to succeed' </font></p>

<font size="2">Tuesday's address will announce the leaving age will be raised to 18 by 2015. </font></p>

<font size="2">Around 90,000 new apprenticeship schemes will be created by 2013, which ministers say is a 60% increase. </font></p>

<font size="2">The government has also pledged to create 44,000 more places at further education colleges. </font></p>

<font size="2">Mr Balls said: "We need every young person to have the skills to succeed. </font></p>

<font size="2">"We still have far too many people who are leaving school at 16 without qualifications and then either going into a job without training or often into no work or training at all. </font></p>

<font size="2">He added: "The vast majority of countries have more people staying on than we do. That's got to change, and this is a radical proposal to make that happen." </font></p>

<font size="2">'Robust regime' </font></p>

<font size="2">The proposal means increasing the leaving age for the first time since 1972, when it was raised to the present 16 years old. </font></p>

<font size="2">The most recent figures for England showed that 11% of 16 to 18-year-olds were still outside education, training or work. </font></p>

<font size="2">Mr Balls said the new age limit would be enforced by a "robust regime" of support and penalties including spot fines and court action. </font></p>

<font size="2">But the schools secretary added that, while there would be a "clear legal responsibility" to stay on post-16, there was no suggestion of using custodial sentences to enforce it. </font></p>

<font size="2">In January, the government said it wanted to see all 16 to 18-year-olds remaining in education by 2013.</font></p>

<font size="2"> </font>School leaving age to rise to 18</p>

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[bbwchingy0007]

I literally just wrote a couple of paragraphs about this for my Politics homework:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Government are trying to ensure that equality of opportunity is retained with this plan. However, by enforcing it, it degrades the value of <strong style="">further education[/b]. This is simply because what is now further education (Sixth-form, Apprenticeships etc) will no longer be <strong style="">further[/b] education if everyone is forced to do it. They hope that all 16 to 18 year olds will remain in further education by 2013. Another of their targets is to get 50% of children to go to University. Again, all this will do is downgrade the value of a degree, meaning that the best students may have to stay on to do a Ph.D just to have an extra qualification above everyone else. So much debt will be amassed by these students that they may have real problems when entering working life.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Government are essentially trying to ensure that the youngsters of today are better educated and more ready by the time they are ready for working life. However, relative to the rest of the youngsters, any individual will have to stay on in education for even longer. It will also create more competition for similar jobs, with less people being available for jobs such as a dustman or street cleaner. These jobs may well have to be given to immigrants if there is no-one from Britain who can do them. All that will do (as we&rsquo;ve seen over the past week) is create fury amongst much of the British public</p>