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EDUCATION
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Few decisions carry as much significance as those faced by post-16 students. In the conclusion of our two-part feature Business Network Editor Nathan Fearn looks at the options available and assesses the impact such decisions make on both the students themselves and the businesses that will ultimately employ them.
When the Government introduced its Raising the Participation Age policy in 2015, meaning that students must stay in education or training until a minimum age of 18, it didn’t make the decisions taken by post-GCSE pupils any less important or daunting. It’s a fact of life that we all must make decisions and live
with the consequences, both positive and negative, and when it comes to big decisions, few 16-year-olds will have made many more important ones than what to do with their lives once the mandatory requirement to complete GCSEs is complete. Of course decisions taken at this age can be reversed
and don’t have to be the be-all-and-end-all for an individual’s future careers and life, yet it is nevertheless a significant and often life-changing period for a young person.
Making the right call about what to do next academically
can have an overwhelmingly positive impact on a person’s life and create long-lasting benefits that transcend those of overall academic attainment. Equally, the wrong advice and wrong decision can set an individual’s progress back years and may set them down a path that is altogether the wrong one for that person. Again, this can go beyond the academic choice made and can affect an individual’s overall outlook on life and future prospects. Historically, the age at which students have been
required to think about their options has shifted upwards. The minimum school leaving age increased from 12 to 14 in 1918, to 15 in 1947 and 16 in 1972 and now sits at 18. While some in the past naturally gravitated to further
education and, ultimately, university, the focus for many was a gender-defined leap into a trade with, arguably, far fewer opportunities for social mobility than are on offer today.
Indeed, in the early 1960s, only four per cent of school
leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees. There’s evidence of a black and white and seemingly
restrictive choice for those at school-leaving age in the mid Sixties, with David Gillard in his 2011 Education in England:
38 business network September 2017
a brief history stating that “The Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE), introduced in England and Wales in 1965, increased the pressure on schools to divide students between 'academic' and 'non-academic' streams. Within comprehensives, GCE students were placed in different teaching groups from CSE students, while in the secondary modern school... students who were deemed capable of CSE entry were separated from those who were not”. While the climate is altogether different now, and
options on the whole more wide-ranging and comprehensive, the post-GCSE decisions facing students remains as demanding and crucial as ever in a fast- changing world. Yes, they have more time to consider their options than their predecessors of years gone by, but the school leavers of today are better placed to influence their own paths, and that makes such decisions infinitely more difficult. So what are the main options available to a student in
England that has just completed their GCSEs? The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) states to students on its website that: “After GCSEs or Nationals, you could continue studying subjects you like, take vocational qualifications, an apprenticeship, or work or volunteer and study part-time”. Post-16 decisions can centre around taking the next
steps in conventional education - namely A-levels with a view, usually, to progressing to university. Another option is to explore a vocational qualification, designed to enable a learner to gain knowledge and skills that are required in the world of work. Alternatively, students can move directly into employment, an option that appears far less common than in past decades and centuries. It’s important to note too that the full-time employment option, under the Government’s Raising the Participation Age policy, would have to include an element of training or part-time study. So what of the consequences of that potentially life-
defining decision that all young people must make and what drives them in their decision making? Andrius Eidimtas and Palmira Juceviciene’s
comprehensive and thought-provoking 2013 study, Factors Influencing School-Leavers Decision to Enrol in Higher Education, states that “the school-leaver’s choice of studies
What are the options available to students who have completed their GCSEs?
School’s
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