Government misses education goals

Targets on keeping teenagers in education are not being met

The government has missed or is set to miss more than half of its own targets to improve educational standards and children's well-being since 1998.

A Department for Children, Schools and Families' report shows 23 out of 53 targets were missed, with "slippage" recorded in a further seven.

The goals range from teenage pregnancy, children's drug abuse rates and obesity to literacy and numeracy standards.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls said significant challenges remained.

These would require the government to "change and renew" its strategic direction, he said in the foreword to the report on the performance of his recently merged Children's department and its predecessor departments.

Neets

The majority of the targets relate to goals that were set and missed in the earlier years of the Labour administration.

But the more recent targets also show around half of the goals have either been missed or are on course to be missed.

These include the failure to achieve 85% of 11-year-olds reaching Level 4 or above in English and maths by 2006 and 85% of 14-year-olds reaching Level 5 in English maths and ICT by 2007.

"Slippage" - defined by the report as where progress is slower than expected - is particularly evident in the government's attempts to tackle some of the wider children's issue.

These include cutting teenage pregnancies and reducing the achievement gap between very young children in disadvantaged areas and the rest of England.

GCSE performance

The report says the target to halt the "year-on-year" rise in obesity in children under 11 by 2010, has not yet been assessed.

However, figures in the report show obesity rates of 14.9% for two to 10-year-olds as a three year aggregate over 2003/04/05.

But non-aggregated data for 2005 shows obesity rates of 16.8% for boys and 16.9% for girls.

Striving

There are some successes, however, with targets for meeting the stock of Ofsted registered childcare met and boosts to school attendance.

The government is ahead of its target for reducing the proportion of schools in which fewer than 65% of pupils achieve Level 4 or above.

And GCSE performance is also ahead with more than 60% of 16-year-olds achieving the equivalent of five good GCSEs.

However, there is slippage against aims to reduce the proportion of young people not in education or training by two percentage points.

The latest figures for Neets are10.3%, compared to the baseline of 10% for 2004.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said all young people were experiencing an education system which enabled them to fulfil their potential.

"But we are not complacent. The PSA targets drive our planning and where we have not met the targets or there is slippage, the Department will be striving to correct this," he said.

"These efforts will be supported by the Children's Plan which will underpin our aims to drive up standards inside the classroom and make life better for children outside the school."