ABSTRACT
Speaking at the TES conference in 1997, David Blunkett (then Secretary of State for Education in England) talked about how youngsters who are dispirited about their chances of finding employment are likely to drift away from the education process.
…we all know that the 1 in 12 who get no qualifications at all, by the time they reach 16, are primarily, but not exclusively, those who have not been attending school. It is not merely a matter of actually being there, it is sometimes ‘being there but not being there’, if you know what I mean.
(Blunkett 1997)