GCSE results will leave 30,000 with no qualifications

Thirty thousand youngsters will leave school without any qualifications at all following this year's GCSE results, the Prince's Trust warned yesterday.

The Trust said they faced long-term unemployment and announced it is spending £5m to provide courses for teenagers lacking basic skills.

A report from the charity published yesterday added: "While the overall attainment of young people at school has improved dramatically over the last ten years, the gap between those who achieve and those who don't has widened.

"This substantial minority of young people face significant difficulties in their lives and the negative impact they have on their communities is growing."

The Trust, a charity set up by Prince Charles, said the money would also go towards setting up a network of clubs in schools to target those at risk of under-achievement and offer them basic skills courses. It said that around 30,000 youngsters in England are expected to leave school every year with no qualifications at all. Over Britain and Northern Ireland as a whole, the number rises to 40,000.

The numbers have hardly changed over the past few years with six per cent leaving without any GCSE's in 1999, 5.6 per cent in 2000 and 5.5 per cent in 2001.

One in ten youngsters – around 60,000 – fail to get any GCSE pass in maths leaving them with the numeracy level of an 11-year-old while one in eleven fail to pass English.

Tom Shebbeare, chief executive of The Prince's Trust, said: "Exam results season is meant to be a joyous time but for young people leaving school without qualifications it may be the beginning of a lifetime struggle to find work.

"The result can be a downward spiral towards loss of self-confidence and even crime, homelessness and drug use. All of us feel the impact."

The report warned that youngsters without qualifications were up to five times more likely to be unemployed and twice as likely to be sacked from their first job.

It warned that poor basic skills were costing the British economy an estimated £10bn a year in lost business orders.

The Prince's Trust's £5m package coincides with a campaign being launched by the Department for Education and Skills urging the estimated seven million adults with poor literacy and numeracy skills to sign up for courses.

Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, said: "One in five of the adult population does not have the skills of an average 11-year-old – yet they are very good at hiding this from friends and family.

"They can't get a good job, they earn less money, they are more likely to suffer illness and can't get involved in everyday activities.

"Even writing a simple message in a card can be asking the impossible."

The Government is launching a national TV and radio advertising campaign to persuade adults to sign up for the courses. It has set a target of schooling three quarters of a million adults in reading, writing and arithmetic by 2004, rising to 1.5 million three years later.