Most school leavers head to college

Nearly 60 per cent of school leavers in South Lanarkshire continued in education last year, according to the latest figures.

Data that went to a council education committee this week showed 1363 (39 per cent) students were going on to complete academic degrees or professional qualifications at university or some colleges.

A further 689 (20 per cent) went on to further education at colleges and other facilities.

The statistics were part of a wider paper on the destination of the 3469 school leavers from 2015/16, with 92 per cent going on to what is termed a positive destination.

184 (5 per cent) found themselves unemployed when they left school, while another 46 (1 per cent) were not seeking employment.

A total of 1035 (30 per cent) leavers went straight into employment, the highest in the past five years.

61 people (2 per cent) went into training, 63 went into an activity agreement and five started voluntary work There was no data available for 23 young people.

The employment rate for young people aged 16 to 19 in South Lanarkshire for the year up to March 2017 was 47.7 per cent, 8.4 per cent higher than the national average.

And the percentage of pupils going on to positive destinations in the region has increased from 90 per cent in 2011/12 to 93 per cent in 2015/16. South Lanarkshire now out-performs the national average of 91 per cent.

The gap in leaver destinations between students living in the lowest 30 per cent data zones and all school leavers has decreased from 7 per cent to 4 per cent since 2011. The gap is closing by around 0.5 per cent every year.

Council officers will now discuss the results with schools.