The death rate of "NEETs", and the educational performance of looked after children

I spent some time this week at a stock-taking overnight workshop organised by Becta, which focused on the "Harnessing Technology" strategy for England. I'm not going to report from the workshop, bar to mention two statistics that were referenced by one of the workshop speakers, both of which will stop you in your tracks.

The first concerns young adults who are not in employment, education, or training (known in education-speak as NEETs).  Work in a major English city shows that one in six male NEETs are dead within 10 years of leaving school.

The second concerns looked after children. Whereas well over half of children in England leave school with at least 5 grade A*-C GCSE passes at school, only around 16% of looked-after children achieve this¹.

These two figures set in context the practical and policy challenges facing Ed Balls, Secretary of State at the Department for Children, Schools, and Families (DCSF) last July, at the launch of the new department, who said (and I am sure means) :

"Our aspirations are straightforward and ambitious: every child deserves to be safe and loved and have a healthy and happy childhood, free from harm; and every child should have the chance to make the most of their talents and fulfil their potential. To do this, we must provide excellent universal services for all children and their families be able to identify potential problems early, before things go wrong; and when children are at risk, do something quickly to help children and their families get back on track."

¹ As an aside, someone mentioned to me that looked-after children in Germany have a better-than-average educational performance.

Comments

[Brian Creese]

As you say, the NEETs figure is a very disturbing finding - I was just wondering if you could point me towards the actual research project?

==

Brian. I am trying to find out and you are not the first to ask. Seb

[Peter Harrison]

Concerning your piece on NEETs and Looked After Children, your readers will probably not be aware of the good work being done by colleagues in the Sheffield College. For more on this, see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/winners-report/tomorrow.

[Brendan Tarring]

Seb - just to re-iterate the mortality rate for male NEET individuals is staggering and needs to be broadcast further. I hope you can identify the research and circulate.

Best wishes Brendan

[Dick Moore]

Seb

Is there a gender breakdown in the NEETS statistics? [Seb responds: not that I know of, and the original data for this post, which I have asked for, is so far not forthcoming....] I am assuming that the majority of these young people are male.

Your piece says that well over 50% leave school with 5 A-C grades at GCSE and while this is 'just true' for 2007 47% had 5 A-C's that included Maths and English.

The excel spread sheet from this site http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000815/index.shtml and some of the statistics show improvement but there is plenty of scope don't you think!

[Dick Moore]

This piece on the BBC web site would support the line in your post above.

[Seb Schmoller]

Nine months later, the 7 August Times Educational Supplement carries the same story.