The impact of KS4 vocational courses on disengaged young people's engagement with education 15-18

Previous research and anecdotal evidence has suggested that offering a broader curriculum, and in particular, vocational qualifications, may be a way to motivate young people who have become disengaged from education and improve their subsequent attainment. However, this hypothesis has not been systematically evaluated.

The analyses presented here explore the educational outcomes of disengaged young people from a nationally representative cohort who reported taking vocational courses in Year 10 compared to similarly disengaged young people who did not.

The study explored outcomes across a range of different subgroups of young people from the Longitudinal Study for Young People (LSYPE), defined using different characteristics of being disengaged in Year 9.

Includes:

• Outcomes for disengaged young people who take vocational courses in Year 10


• Outcomes for disengaged young people who take vocational courses in Year 10 �C a re�examination of this relationship using more sophisticated statistical methods


• Outcomes for young people who took vocational courses in Year 12 among those who did not achieve the academic requirements for A levels

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