Teenage drop-outs paid and shamed

Teenage children are to be shamed into staying on at school beyond the age of 16 by warning the potential drop-outs that they are costing Britain £15bn a year.

The Secretary of State for Education, Estelle Morris, has been given new figures by her officials showing that the country is losing an estimated £97,000 for every child who drops out of school at 16, in a lifetime of higher unemployment, low wages, lower productivity, higher crime, ill-health, unwanted pregnancies and drug misuse.

The shocking figures, which were produced by her own department and the University of York, will be used to try to make British teenagers feel the same sense of shame about dropping out of full-time education at 16 as their American counterparts.

Ms Morris will back up her moves to reverse the drop-out culture with a White Paper on keeping children in education from 14 to 19.

The White Paper will not attempt to raise the school-leaving age, but pupils will be paid to stay on at school with education maintenance allowances of up to £40 a week, across the country.

The allowances will be extended from pilot schemes by the Chancellor in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review at a cost of £600m. Students over 16 in full-time education and whose parents' gross income is below £30,000 will benefit.

The plans, which were outlined in a consultation document earlier this year, include developing more vocational qualifications for those who stay on, with literacy and numeracy teaching up to the age of 19.

Ms Morris said: "The days when you could simply leave school at 16 and walk into a job are now over. Keeping young people in education after 16 has never been so important, not just for themselves but for the nation as a whole.

"We have already brought forward imaginative proposals. Sixteen-year-olds and their families must now understand that if you drop out at 16 you are seriously damaging your own life. We need an anti-drop-out culture, like America."

The drive to persuade more teenagers to stay on in full-time education is part of the Government's commitment to focus on secondary education after tackling failures in primary school education.

Ministers are concerned that Britain has a high rate of young people who prefer to abandon full-time education without any job to go to. Many simply slip out of the system, and do not claim unemployment benefit to avoid being pressed to take work or more training.

The drop-out culture has contributed to rising crime figures which has prompted ministerial attacks on yobbism, and school truancy. However, ministers accept they cannot change the preferences of teenagers to "do their own thing" without supplying better life choices.