Primary and secondary league tables in full

The school leaving age is to be raised for the first time in nearly half a century, The Times has learnt.

With full encouragement from Gordon Brown, Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, has set up a team to organise the lifting of the age at which children must be at school, in training or in an apprenticeship from 16 to 18 by 2013.

Ten-year-olds who enter secondary school next year will be the first to have to stay in mandatory education until they are 18. It will be the first rise in the school leaving age since 1972, when it was raised to 16.

The change, which will affect around 330,000 teenagers, will help to tackle rising youth unemployment, with unskilled school leavers finding it increasingly difficult to get a job.

Mr Brown, almost certainly the next prime minister, will put the increase in the leaving age at the centre of his 10-year plan for government, to be unveiled when he launches his bid to succeed Tony Blair, The Times has been informed.

The move will require legislation, and the Treasury is committed to paying the short-term costs of the proposals, expecting that they will more than pay for themselves in the long run, by raising skills and reducing welfare payments.

The Department for Education and Skills is set to publish a green paper on the practicalities in the spring. The move cannot be introduced until the capacity of the education system has been increased, while employers also need time to improve work-based training.

Mr Johnson and Mr Brown have held extensive discussions on the issue, culminating in a breakfast meeting at the Treasury yesterday with leading educationalists and industrialists, including Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector of schools, Sir Alan Jones, the chairman of Toyota, Dr John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, and Sir Digby Jones, the newly- appointed skills tsar.

There would be exemptions for under-18s who are caring for parents or relatives, and for young teenage mothers.

The Government is considering enforcing the change by withdrawing driving licences from teenagers who do not comply. Officials are looking at the example of the Canadian province of Ontario, which found that driving bans were an effective way to ensure compliance. However, British teenagers can start driving at 17 rather than 16, and are less dependent on cars than their Canadian peers.

Mr Johnson, who left school at 15 without qualifications, told The Times: “It should be as unacceptable to see a 16-year- old working, with no training, no education, as it is now to see a 14-year-old. A 14-year-old at work was common until the Butler changes [after the Second World War], but now you would find it repellent.

“We should find it equally repellent that a youngster of 16 is not getting any training.”

Under the plans, 16 and 17-year-olds would have three options, ranging from the entirely academic to work-based training. They could also stay on at school, studying either A levels, new-style diplomas or the International Baccalaureat. They could go to a further education college to study a full-time vocational course. Or they could enter employment but with a guaranteed minimum level of training, such as an apprenticeship.

Mr Johnson wants to launch guaranteed apprenticeships, so that any youngster who reaches a certain skill level will have the right to follow a suitable apprenticeship.

The Government believes that the changes are needed because of the collapse in unskilled jobs in the economy means that young school leavers are increasingly unemployable.

According to the Office for National Statistics, unemployment among 16 and 17-year- olds has risen from 19.9 per cent when Labour came to power in 1997 to 25.3 per cent now. The number of unskilled jobs has dropped from 8 million in the 1960s to 3.5 million now.

A recent Treasury report predicted that the number of unskilled jobs would drop to only 600,000 by 2020, making it almost impossible for unskilled teenagers to find work.

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