As part of the Spending Review and the White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, the Government confirmed its commitment to raising the participation age to 18 by 2015. We want young people to participate because they recognise the benefits it will bring and because the reforms to education and training will create a system that caters for the needs and aspirations of every young person. The support and encouragement that young people receive should be sufficient to reach our goal of full participation without the need to use enforcement. This is why we have legislated through the Education Act 2011 to allow us to delay the introduction of the enforcement process against young people and their parents.
The Education and Skills Act 2008 increases the minimum age at which young people in England can leave learning, requiring them to continue in education or training until the end of the academic year in which they turn 17 from 2013 and until their 18th birthday from 2015.
Raising the participation age (RPA) does not mean young people must stay in school; they will able to choose one of the following options:
- full-time education, such as school, college or home education
- work-based learning, such as an Apprenticeship
- part-time education or training if they are employed, self-employed or volunteering for more than 20 hours a week.
Successfully achieving RPA will require all sections of the education system to play their part, and in particular local authorities will have a key role to champion the needs of young people in their areas and work with local partners to achieve full participation. 35 local authorities are currently involved in delivering 22 local delivery projects, developing their approaches to increasing participation and delivering RPA. These projects are intended to give local authorities the opportunity to test different approaches to delivering RPA and share their learning, so that other areas can build on it in preparation for 2013/2015.
