School leaver follow-up destinations

Scotland’s Chief Statistician today published ‘Summary Statistics for Follow-up Leaver Destinations, No. 3: 2021 Edition’.

The results show that 92.2% of 2019/20 school leavers were in a positive destination nine months after the end of their final school year; this has decreased from 92.9% in 2018/19.

Compared to the previous school leaver cohort (2018/19) there was an increase in the proportion of leavers in Higher Education, from 38.4% to 42.9% and an increase in the proportion of leavers in Further Education, from 23.3% to 23.6%. The proportion in employment was 21.3% for 2019/20 school leavers which has fallen from 28.0% in 2018/19.

Follow-up destinations relate to outcomes approximately nine months after the end of the school year. The time period covered by these statistics means that the results will be affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

In particular, the statistics will reflect the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on choices made by, and opportunities available to, pupils upon leaving school during the pandemic.

The pandemic may also have affected local partnerships’ ability to track some school leavers through home visits, potentially impacting the proportion of school leavers with an ‘Unknown’ status.

The figures released today were produced in accordance with professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

Background

The figures released today were produced by professionally independent statistical staff in accordance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

These statistics are sourced from ‘Summary Statistics for Follow-up Leaver Destinations, No. 3: 2021 Edition’. The publication uses the school leaver destination data supplied by Skills Development Scotland (SDS) from the “Opportunities for All shared dataset.”