A “bums on seats” approach to post-16 education is leading to thousands of students dropping out before completing their courses, it has been claimed.
Latest figures show that 178,100 16 to 18-year-olds failed to complete their post-16 qualifications started in 2012/13.
At the same time, there were 150,000 individual AS level exam entries (13 per cent) and 10,000 A level entries (1.3 per cent) that failed to achieve a pass grade (an A to E), although so-called non-achievement rates have been falling in recent years.
An analysis by the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion on behalf of the Local Government Association (LGA) says that the cost of these drop-outs and non-achievements to the tax-payer is £814 million.
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