November 2007 saw the Government announce proposals to increase the school leaving age from 16 to 18. If this becomes law, it will make the new age limit 17 in 2013 and 18 from 2015.
The Government say they are doing this as young people supposedly don’t have the basic skills that they require to cope in the world of work. By enforcing this law, they hope to better prepare young people to enter employment and generally make society more efficient and functional.
This law may seem like a good idea on paper. However, can young people who have decided that they don’t want to stay in school after they turn 16 be physically made to stay? Katie, 15, a student in secondary education, thinks that they can and should be made to stay.
She says “It shouldn’t be our decision to walk away from our GCSEs because if today’s generation is not properly educated there will be no future generation of doctors and lawyers.”
Giovanna, 15, also sees the change as positive. “It will make the education system more efficient” she says. “In future young people will be able to go to secondary school, stay there until they’re eighteen, and then go straight on to university.”
However, other young people are more sceptical. Chinwe, 16, a student in sixth-form says “I was planning to stay in full time education until I was 18 anyway, so it wouldn’t really make that much of a difference to me. I think it will only work if it is enforced properly.”
Chinwe also says “I know people who left school at 16 and I think that they might have been angry about having to stay longer if their initial plan was to do an apprenticeship or to get a job.”
Chinwe is not the only person who sees the lack of choice as a problem. Sixth-form student Mueen, 17, also thinks he would’ve been angry if he had been forced to stay in school until he was 18.
He says “I don’t know if it should be compulsory because some people know what they want to do when they’re 16. Some of my friends got good GCSEs but they chose to get jobs, start apprenticeships and some just went to work for their family businesses.”
In my opinion the school leaving age being raised to 18 is neither positive nor negative, it is simply symptomatic of the times we live in. The Government feels it necessary to legislate over young people until they are of an age to be responsible for themselves.
By law, you’re officially an adult at 18; you can get married, you can drink alcohol, and you can vote. Therefore it seems appropriate that the school leaving age is in line with the age that the Government set as the end of childhood.
The government may be able to make young people stay in school after turning 16; however they cannot force young people to learn. Most core skills that young people will need for adulthood should have already been learned in school prior to the age of 16.
Hence I would question the value of such a law, especially when it is not fully endorsed by the group of people that it most directly affects.
About this article
This story was produced by Charlotte Gray, 15.
