When the promise of qualifications and better job prospects don't cut it, how can reluctant young people be lured into education or training?
One way, according to the government, is to pay them. And, surprisingly enough, it works.
Last week, the Department for Children, Schools and Families published an evaluation of its £80m Learning Agreement pilot scheme. It was aimed at young people who are in jobs without training and who are considered more at risk of ending up not in education, employment or training (Neet).
But just 9,500 young people - or seven per cent of those eligible - have signed up and so far only around 3,000 young people have gained a qualification from the scheme. Given the £80m outlay, that amounts to spending of more than £25,000 per young person (CYP Now, 5-11 February 2009).
However, the strand of the scheme that tested out paying young people £250 each to train was highly successful. And this isn't the first government scheme to prove that paying young people can entice them into learning.
Evaluations of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) payments system show that recipients of EMA are more likely to stay on post-16, more likely to complete their courses and more likely to be successful.
Payment for results
So is paying young people in unskilled jobs to undergo training the answer to help drive down the numbers of Neets?
Malcolm Trobe, policy director at the Association of School and College Leaders, says cash incentives are a viable way of increasing participation in education. "If we need to give this incentive to actually get people involved in training then we have to consider it. We've got to do anything we can to upskill the workforce," he says.
Trobe claims the success of EMA merits the expansion of cash incentive schemes but adds: "In an ideal world we wouldn't need to offer cash incentives - but it's not an ideal world."
Christine Lewis, national officer for 14 to 19 at Unison, says cash incentives are an unsophisticated way of reducing the number of young people who are Neet. "If young people are disengaged, a £250 pay-off isn't going to do much more than fund a weekend away or a lot of partying," she says.
What's needed to achieve long-term benefits, Lewis argues, is to motivate young people early on in their school life before they become disengaged with education or training.
SOMETHING FOR SOMETHING - HOW INCENTIVES WORK
- The government's Education Maintenance Allowance scheme was piloted for two years from September 1999, before being rolled out nationally in 2004
- Young people aged 16 to 18 are eligible for payments of between £10 and £30 per week, provided they stay in education or training and live in a household where the income is below £30,000
- The £80m Learning Agreement pilot scheme, which was a joint initiative between Connexions and local learning and skills councils, ran for two years from April 2006
- In five out of eight pilot areas, young learners received a bonus payment of £250, paid either in instalments against key learning milestones or in full at the end of the course
THE £250 CARROT - How payments motivated young learners in Cornwall and Devon
Around a third of the young people who gained a qualification under the Learning Agreement pilot lived in Cornwall and Devon. Here, learners were offered £250 if they completed the scheme - 2,800 signed up and 1,200 gained a qualification.
Tracey Burley, contract management and compliance manager at Connexions Cornwall and Devon, says there are various reasons why cash incentives make a difference. "When you're trying to sell the Learning Agreement option to a young person, the cash incentives act as a hook to get them interested. We also heard some other young people on the pilot were going to drop out - their Connexions advisers found they could convince them not to by using the cash incentive. Lastly, if there was a drop in a young person's wages, because they had to take time off to do an exam or spend extra money on travel costs, the money covered that."
Burley believes £250 is good value for money if it gets the young people a qualification. "We all do something in exchange for something. You've got to remember that you're training these young people up for the rest of their lives."
Burley is disappointed that there are no plans to roll out the Learning Agreements scheme nationwide. "We've never had a pilot that has engaged this group of young people. I can see no better option for raising participation in training," she says.
