ABSTRACT
Post-compulsory education and training is an unwieldy label for a complex and diverse sector of education. The only real defining factor was the post-compulsory nature of provision and, as those who work within this shifting world are already well aware, even this has not been an accurate descriptor for some time. Fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds have attended colleges for years in both formal and informal capacities. Often these customers for education have been low achievers, the excluded or unwanted refugees from the school rolls. Yet this is not invariably the case. A minority of younger students has always been enrolled in subjects unavailable in schools and for this reason has used both full- and part-time academic courses.
