Great news for young people 16-18 year olds in Education, Employment or Training

Last Tuesday I was re-elected by the Labour Group of Councillors to be the Lead Councillor for Education and one of the first briefings I was given was the good improvement of the reduction of young people aged 16-18 not in employment, education or training. (NEET)


The number of NEET 16-18 year olds in the Borough has fallen by 2.1% from the previous year - 6.3% at the end of 2013 compared to 8.4% in 2012.

90.3% of Reading's 16-18 year olds are in education, employment or training compared to 84.7% for across the South East.

The Borough’s ‘activity not known’ figure of 3.4% is also considerably lower than 10.2% for the South East as a whole. This demonstrates our continuing focus on the young people who are most in need of support.

This has been a period of hard work and partnership with others, namely further education establishments, like Reading College, the Raising Participation Team and the good work they have done, working with young people, listening to their concerns and ambitions and importantly with the business community, crucial to ensuring apprenticeships and fruitful training is available for young people to take up.

This is great news for many young people but we must not be complacent and continue to work in partnership with young people, colleges and with business to create more opportunities for young people.