A leading educationalist has said “schools are doing all they can” to close a destinations gap after research revealed that disadvantaged young people are twice as likely to be out of work or education compared with their wealthier peers five years after GCSEs.
The education charity Teach First, which carried out the analysis, has called for pupil premium funding to be extended to 16- to 19-year-olds to combat the disparity.
But its chief executive, Russell Hobby, told Tes that the burden for closing the gap should not rest only on schools because the figures are underpinned by a “big social problem”.
The analysis has been published today ahead of GCSE results day tomorrow, after the first set of exams in three years were sat this summer.
Teach First used Department for Education data to reveal that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are more than twice as likely as their wealthier peers to not be in sustained work or education five years after their GCSEs.
Mr Hobby made his comments amid concerns about the “destinations gap” for disadvantaged young people, which analysis shows grows significantly in the years after students sit their GCSEs.
When asked what recommendations he had for schools to combat this, he said: “Schools are already doing all they can.”
The disadvantage gap in destinations for GCSE students
He added that “if we want schools to do more, we’ve got to fund them to do more as well”.
“I wouldn’t want to be putting all of the burden on schools to crack this problem, which is a big social problem as well,” he said.
The charity has called for pupil premium funding - which aims to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged pupils up to the age of 16 in schools in England - to be introduced for 16- to 19-year-old students.
Such funding for older students would improve both the attainment and retention of disadvantaged young people in key stage 5 and help close the destinations gap, Teach First said.
With this funding, Mr Hobby said, more careers advice and guidance would be “within [schools’] grasp”.
Teach First said the figures showed that a year after taking GCSEs, almost 12 per cent of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are not in any form of sustained education, apprenticeship or employment destination, compared with almost 4 per cent of non-disadvantaged pupils.
After three years this eight percentage point difference rises to 14 percentage points, and at the five-year mark is up to 19 percentage points, the charity said.
And almost a third (33 per cent) of disadvantaged students are not in any form of sustained education, apprenticeship or employment five years after GCSEs, compared with 14 per cent of their non-disadvantaged peers.
The charity said data for the same academic year (2019-20) also showed that little over a quarter (27 per cent) of disadvantaged students go on to higher education, meaning they are more likely to end up out of sustained work or education altogether than they are to reach higher education.
By contrast, those from non-disadvantaged backgrounds are more than three times as likely to go to university (46 per cent) than they are to end up out of sustained work or education.
Teach First said its analysis of DfE data also showed that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are almost twice as likely to drop out of their A-level course than their non-disadvantaged peers - at 13 per cent compared with 7 per cent.
Cost-of-living crisis ‘will make the situation worse’
Mr Hobby said that there was “every chance” that the destinations gap could get worse amid the cost-of-living crisis.
For example, he said “increased costs of transport” could be a “significant barrier for young people to access further and higher education”.
Mr Hobby said: “The destinations gap is a priority for the future of our young people - and the prosperity of our country.
“It cannot be right that you’re significantly less likely to have the same employment or education opportunities simply because your family has less money.
“We urge the new prime minister to tackle inequality in education - to ensure every child is given a fighting chance of a bright future. It’s not just a matter of fairness - our country’s long-term prosperity depends on the skills of the next generation of young people.”
