Introduction

Explaining Raising the Participation Age

There will be an important change in the law from summer 2013: it will affect how long you will be staying in education or training.

If you are in year 11 (during the academic year 2012-2013), you will have to stay in education or training until at least the end of the school year in which you are 17 years old.
If you are in year 10 or below (during the academic year 2012-2013) you will have to continue in education or training until at least your 18^th birthday.

This doesn’t mean that you have to stay at the same school and go into the sixth form.

You may decide to:

go to college
take an Apprenticeship or job with regular training
take a part-time education or training course if you are employed, self-employed or volunteering for more than 20 hours per week.

You may want to:

build on your GCSE qualifications by moving up to AS or A levels in sixth form, sixth form college or a further education college
apply for an Apprenticeship or a job with training
take some work-related courses, for example, OCR Nationals, BTECs or City & Guilds qualifications
carry on working towards qualifications on a Foundation Learning course
do some voluntary work alongside a part time course or training provided by the organisation you are helping.

Why is this happening?

Most young people already carry on in learning after the age of 16 at the moment – they do this because:

they know that it gives them the best chance to get the qualifications and skills to help them achieve whatever they want to do in life
they also know that it will improve their prospects for getting a better job and higher earnings.

This change means that ALL young people will benefit from staying in learning or training for longer.