Platform 51

News

Categories: education and skills, NEETs
Thursday, 25 August 2011
GCSE results - life changing day for girls across the country

New door of opportunity or the start of a bleak future?

Today will be a life changing day for hundreds and thousands of girls across the country. For many it will open new doors of opportunity, A-levels, training courses and their first taste of employment. But for some it will signal the beginning of a bleak future.

Thousands of girls leave education every year without any formal qualifications. While league tables focus on those at the top, those at the bottom are often allowed to slip away unnoticed. Once out of education girls can find it almost impossible to get back in.

The debate about young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) tends to focus on young men but in fact latest figures show not only that there are more young women aged 16 to 24 not in education, employment or training but their numbers are growing much faster. Sometimes this is as a result of the choices they have made, but usually it is the effect of a system that has failed them.

In our experience while young men are acting out and attracting media attention, many girls are quietly disengaging from schools without attracting media attention, often due to dealing with difficult situations like family trouble or bullying. Today most of those young women will walk away from education without anyone trying to stop them and that will probably define them for the rest of their lives.