Wed, 20 Aug 2014The government’s increase in the age at which young people can leave education to 18 will fail unless careers advice and financial assistance is provided, The Work Foundation has claimed.

Its report ‘Staying Power: Making the raising of the participation age a policy success’ said that the policy change will only have a minimal impact because it is not legally enforced and many of the financial incentives to stay in school have been withdrawn.

For example, the report argued that the removal of the Educational Maintenance Allowance and cuts to local authority budgets would hinder the policy’s ability to reach those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The report’s recommendations include:

• Improving the quality of options available post-16

• Improving careers advice and guidance to ensure that it becomes independent and that face-to-face advice is made available for 16-18-year-subject>apprentices, grads]olds

• Introducing Youth Transition Partnerships to join up services currently available to support young people’s transition from school to work.

According to the report, the UK faces one of the lowest rates (78%) of 15-19-year-olds in education and training among OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] nations, falling below Spain (86%), France (84%) and Italy (81%).