Young people abandon ambitions after failing exams
Derren Hayes
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
The Prince's Trust is calling on government and employers to do more to support young people leaving school with low or no qualifications to get a job.
A report by the youth charity says too many school leavers write off their chances of finding a good job and achieving economic independence due to failing to get good grades at GCSEs.
A YouGov survey of 2,342 young people aged 16 to 25 carried out for the report, reveals that 20 per cent had abandoned their ambitions due to poor qualifications.
Follow up interviews with 164 young people who left school with less than five A*-C GCSE grades found that one in four thought that their lives would always be held back by their exam results.
While one in six of all young people surveyed thought they would "end up on benefits", this increases to one in three of those with poor grades. Young people who failed to achieve success at GCSEs were also twice as likely as their peers to say they would "never amount to anything", the study found.
The research also found that those who left school with few qualifications are twice as likely as their peers to say that they “struggled to concentrate on schoolwork due to family problems” and that their “home life was so stressful that they struggled to focus”. They are also significantly less likely to have had access to a computer, the internet or a quiet place to do their schoolwork at home.
Last year, two-fifths of school leavers failed to achieve the five A*-C grades at GCSE, and the trust says more vocational support is needed for this group.
Martina Milburn, chief executive of The Prince’s Trust, said: “Thousands of young people’s ambitions are crushed by exam results each year. Many of these young people have faced problems at home or bullying at school, so their exam results don’t reflect their true potential.
“It is now more important than ever to invest in vocational support and training for young people who are not academically successful. Government, employers and charities must work together to get them into jobs. Without this, thousands will struggle to compete, leaving them hopeless and jobless.”
The trust is one of four UK charities to have been selected by bank HSBC to deliver the Opportunity Partnerships project, which aims to help 25,000 disadvantaged young people into education, training and work.
