Clause 10
Education and Skills Bill
2:45 pm
Jim Knight (Minister of State (Schools and Learners), Department for Children, Schools and Families; South Dorset, Labour)
We expect about 15,000 more 16 and 17-year-olds in school in 2015, so the provision of post-16 sixth forms will require a modest expansion. However, as I set out in evidence, that will be an average per local authority of 50 per cohort. That is extremely modest, and I do not anticipate swathes of new sixth forms or sixth form colleges cropping up throughout the country which we would have to fund.
On the slightly complicated issue of the proportion of additional participants who might be doing A-levels, we have calculated the figures on some of our assumptions of economic benefit by looking at the level of qualification that non-participants achieved at the point at which they stopped participating and what individuals with a similar level of qualification are going on to study. On that basis, about one fifth of 16-year-olds and one quarter of 17-year-olds have reached level 2 at the point of leaving school, when they do not participate. The vast majority—83 per cent.—of those 16 and 17-year-olds who reach level 2 opt to do A-levels, but they are not the only ones who do so. Among 16 and 17-year-olds leaving school with no qualifications, 11 per cent. go on to do A-levels, probably with extra support to reach that level. Similarly, among the 16 and 17-year-olds leaving school with below level 2 qualifications, 23 per cent. make the leap to A-levels. On the basis of that level of prior attainment for non-participants, we have been able to assume that 31 per cent. would go on to do A-levels.