Missing – the 50,000 jobless teens who have dropped off the radar
This is a particularly acute issue for those with the least choices and the most expensive travel challenges in rural areas. If anyone has some funding to support an enquiry into the rural dimensions of this in more detail I wold be very interested in a discussion. The story tells us:
More than 50,000 people aged 16 to 18 not in education or work have “gone missing” from official statistics and are receiving no support, according to research published today.
It warned that the problem of Neets – young people not in education, employment or training – is much bigger than local authorities realises because tens of thousands of them have “disappeared off the radar”. In London alone, an estimated 15,000 youngsters have “gone missing”.
Richard Brooks, the former director of strategy at the schools inspectorate Ofsted who carried out the research, said: “Over the course of this parliament the quality of local data on these young people has broken down completely. We are massively understating the scale of the problem at local level where it matters the most, and depriving many young people who are out of sight of the help and support they need.”