The number of young people in ‘positive destinations’ after leaving school in West Dunbartonshire has improved fractionally over the last year, but remains below the national average.
Figures for the 2020/21 academic year were presented to councillors at a meeting of the local authority’s education committee last week, and showed that 90.99 percent of school leavers locally were in a ‘positive destination’ in October of last year, up from 89.66 percent.
However, the figure is one of the lowest in the country, 4.49 percent below the national average of 95.48 percent - with the picture even more mixed when broken into individual schools.
A positive destination is classed as either further or higher education, training, volunteer work, personal skills development activity or employment.
Our Lady and St Patrick’s was the best performing school locally, with 93.33 percent of leavers moving into work, training or further education.
At Dumbarton Academy, the figure was 91.67 percent, whilst Vale of Leven Academy showed a drop to 86.71 percent - almost 10 percent lower than the national average.
Of the 910 pupils leaving school across the area, more than 65 percent went into further or higher education or training
A further 24.51 percent moved into employment, with 5.82 percent of school leavers seeking employment, and 3.19 percent classed as not seeking employment.
Education service manager at WDC Andrew Brown said: “Whilst it’s great to see improvement, we’re in no way complacent as we sit below the national average.
“We are committed to doing more work to help young people make the transition into further or higher education.
“We’ll also work with Skills Development Scotland to identify a young person at risk of going into a negative destination and making sure they get tailored, support.”
Kilpatrick SNP councillor Gordon Scanlon said: “What are we doing to work with young people to ensure the positive destinations aren’t just stat padding?”
Mr Brown added that the council worked with schools to ensure pupils were following a path they wanted.
