MORE than 90% of the Island’s 16-year-olds are staying on at school, so there is little need to follow the UK’s move to raise the school leaving age to 18, say Education.

The UK government have set up a team to organise the lifting of the age at which children must be at school, in training or in an apprenticeship, from 16 to 18 by 2013. Ten-year-olds who enter secondary school next year will be the first to have to stay in mandatory education until they are 18 and it will be the first rise in the school leaving age since 1972, when it was raised to 16. But the Island’s director of education, Tom McKeon, said that most young people in Jersey were already staying on until 18 without legislation. ‘The UK government wish for students post 16 to continue further education or work in a situation where there is training. In Jersey, the UK requirement doesn’t apply in the same way,’ he said. ‘We in Jersey are far closer to that goal. Young people are choosing to stay on and go into further education without legislation.’