We attended the Working Futures event with Reducing Early School Leaving in the EU (RESL.eu) yesterday. RESL.eu is an international research project examining the processes that lead young people to leave school without achieving the skills and qualifications necessary to successful transition into the labour market.
In 2013/14, an extensive study was conducted with almost 20,000 young people across 9 countries (Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK. The UK team surveyed more then 3,000 students in schools and colleges in two research sites: London and the North-East of England with whole cohorts of pupils in your 10 & 12.
Participants were then interviewed again 2015/16 to track their trajectories from school to further study or labour market entry. Qualitative interviews and focus groups were also carried out in the UK with young people, parents, teachers, school and college staff, apprenticeship providers, policy makers and youth workers. A sample of young people were re-interviewed to gain a long term view of their experience in transitioning from school to work.
RESL.eu have produced a number of useful and insightful guides with recommendations:
Beyond the numbers : explores incentivising and implementing better apprenticeships
Feeling Supported : looks at how you can enable success by promoting engagement at school
Each report explores it’s own recommendations for schools and colleges, employers and policy makers. We have highlighted the key recommendations below but encourage you to read the reports and explore the recommendations in more detail.
Enabling sustainable transitions from education to employment | Key Recommendations
Schools and Colleges
- Implementation of ‘school engagement risk assessment’ toolkits: these can be used at school and class level to identify students who report low engagement, as well as at school level in cooperation with local authorities to identify areas where resources may be focused
- Development of measures and interventions targeted at specific ‘risk’ groups: risks should be determined not only on the basis of socio-demographic, attainment and attendance data, but should also take into consideration students’ self perceptions and the level of support they feel is available to them
- Compulsory high-quality career information, advice and guidance (IAG) integrated into the school curriculum, starting at the beginning of secondary education to benefit all young people from the age of 11;and continuing over the course of compulsory education
- Rethinking school leader tables: schools need to be incentivised to promote alternatives to university, such as apprenticeships; which means changing school league tables so that success is not judged simply on A-Level results and progression routes to university
Employers
- Provide living wage for apprentices so that these opportunities are viable for a broader range of young people
- Creating progression pathways from vocational and other training courses in to employment, for example through employing young inexperienced workers
- Offering mentoring schemes to enhance the retention and progression of young people
Policy makers
- Coordinated, single portal application process for apprenticeships: The creation of a single portal application process, like UCAS, so that young people, their parents and schools are confident in accessing high quality apprenticeships delivered by reputable providers
- Incentives to employers to recruit and provide mentoring schemes for inexperienced workers, as well as young people with criminal convictions, growing up in care system and those from disadvantaged background
- Free locally available IAG for NEET young people, advertised at highly visible places
- Financial help during the first month of employment for young people coming out of unemployment
