School leavers more prepared for next career step

Young people in Highland are increasingly more prepared to enter into a 'positive destination' on leaving school such as higher education, further education, training, employment, and voluntary work.

Education Chair, Cllr John Finlayson said: "An incredible amount of work and effort takes place daily in our schools and wider Education service to make sure that our young people, when they come to end of their time in school, are in the best position that is possible to achieve the career and life they desire. For some young people, this may be college or university, for others it may be an apprenticeship or full-time employment, but the important factor is that we have given them the opportunities, skills, and knowledge to enable them to pursue and take on these new challenges.

"I would like to congratulate our young people on their achievements, it has been a challenging few years for everyone but they have continued to strive to achieve their goals in Education and Learning. I would also like to thank and acknowledge the joint working of staff, parents, and partners - including MCR pathways & My Future, My Success - to support each young person's journey into their chosen career path."

The Highland Council will continue to work closely with its Developing the Young Workforce partners including Skills Development Scotland, employers, colleges, training providers and employability services through the Collective Developing the Young Workforce strategy board.

Executive Chief Officer for Education and Learning, Nicky Grant said: "It is encouraging to see the data reflect the progress that has been made in several key measures in our schools. These positive trends in our destination data are a platform on which we can continue to build. As we continue to improve outcomes for our school leavers, more of our young people will be prepared to enter into positive and sustained destinations.

"The initial destinations data for last session's leavers has shown 94.5% of Highland young people entering into a positive destination. This outcome is the highest in the last 3 years and depicts an increase from the previous year in the number of young people entering into further education and employment.

"Our young people who were previously able for work but remain unemployed at the point of leaving school has decreased over recent years, and now sits at 2.9%. We will continue to work on closing this gap to pre-Covid figures and aligning more to the National data."