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This article demonstrates the disadvantages that students leaving special needs schools ( Förderschule) face in their school-to-work transition in Germany. We analyse whether the institutional label of ‘having attended a special needs school’ – beyond and above low school attainment – results in scarring effects for students’ chances of integration into training and employment after leaving school. We focus on students classified as having learning disability ( Lernbehinderung), the largest group among students with special educational needs (SEN) and examine their NEET risk compared to equally low-attaining students from general schools at age 20/21. The analyses are based on rare longitudinal data for SEN students, the German National Educational Panel Study. Employing matching and regression techniques, we find that the label of ‘having attended a special needs school’ does generate long-term scars above and beyond low school attainment. However, this is only the case for school leavers with a lower secondary school certificate but not for those without school certificate.

Many countries have implemented youth (un)employment programmes for low-achieving young people to improve their employment prospects. In Germany, these youths are often channelled into prevocational programmes to prevent them from long-term ‘scars’ by providing a ‘second chance’ to enter apprenticeships (serving as entry into the labour market in Germany). However, the usefulness of these programmes is contested. It remains unclear whether it is (more) useful for young people to invest in education and improve formal qualifications (to send a positive ‘signal’) or to spend more time in firms (e.g. to counteract possible discrimination processes or to generate new network ties). It is also unclear who benefits most depending on previous school-leaving certificates. We address these questions by using rich data from the German National Educational Panel Study and apply entropy balancing as a matching approach to control for selection. We find that both attaining a higher school certificate and spending time in firms improve low-achieving youth’s chances to enter apprenticeships. However, only those who attained a higher-level school certificate are able to enter higher-status training occupations afterwards. Moreover, prevocational programmes are most beneficial for the most disadvantaged.

Purpose: For young people with a migrant background in Germany transition from school to company-based vocational training is much more difficult than for non-migrants. This remains true, when data is controlled for the lower performance of young migrants in general education. In this paper we investigate if and how far the chances of transition to company-based vocational training and the acquisition of different school leaving certificates depend from the migration generation and the region of origin of young migrants. The question is, if disadvantages of young migrants diminish with a longer stay of their family in Germany and if this is also the case for the different groups of regions of origin (Southern Europe, East Europe, Turkey, other Middle East and North Africa, Other regions). Methods: We conduct multivariate analyses on the basis of data from the German Educational Panel Study (NEPS). Our analyses relate to young people who left a general education school after Year 9 in the summer of 2011 or Year 10 in the summer of 2012. Our database comprises information provided by a total of 5,952 school leavers. Results: For all four origin groups worse chances in comparison to non-migrants were detected. But there are differences in the disadvantages of opportunity between the various groups. They acquire more often lower school qualifications than their counterparts not from a migrant background and also have worse chances than the latter of successfully progressing to company-based vocational education and training. This applies even if other important influencing factors such as social origin are taken into account. Young people from a Turkish or Arab background have the lowest chances in general education and vocational training. As generation status rises disadvantages diminish for all origin groups, but with different magnitudes. A clear upwards-directed integration can be observed solely for the East European origin group. Conclusion: The results of our analyses signalise a clear need for action on the part of German policy makers and German society to reduce the educational disadvantages suffered by young migrants and to develop an effective support mechanism. Integration is rarely achieved in the short term. It is a long-term task which frequently extends over several generations.

This review focusses on the transition of low-achieving school leavers -that is, those who left regular schools or special schools for students with learning disabilities without or with only a lower secondary school degree- into the vocational education and training (VET) system. Most of them do not enter regular VET programs after finishing school but participate in prevocational measures. Some of them are able to eventually enter regular VET programs while others are never able to do so. The review summarizes what we know about how participation in prevocational measures influences the probability of subsequently entering regular VET programs and if so, why. The review shows the little knowledge we have about for whom these measures generate new opportunities, and for whom they reinforce disadvantages. The review includes research on access to regular VET programs because selection processes at this stage result in a selective -not random- group of participants in prevocational measures and research on prevocational programs. (author's abstract)

Zeitschrift für Pädagogik 56 (2010) 4, S. 512-530, Finland has been remarkably successful in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies conducted in the first years of the new millennium. The variation in achievement is low and the educational level of Finnish young people is high in an international comparison. Also, dropout rates are lower in Finland than in many other countries. In this article, the main patterns of post-compulsory graduation and dropping out of education, as well as aspects of social exclusion of Finnish youth are examined. While the overwhelming majority of young people in Finland manage to cope well, an increasing minority seems to be at risk of educational and social exclusion. Establishing educational equality has been at the centre of educational policy in Finland since World War II. However, the current tendency revolves around expediting efficiency and, more generally, serving the economy. These steps towards a neo-liberalistic educational policy threaten to marginalise an ever-growing number of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and increase the risk of exclusion. (DIPF/Orig.).

When dealing with the question of Algerian 'elites' - a term which, by the way, is never used locally - a basic contradiction will become apparent. 'National' they were indeed, those new social categories (doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, and so on) that the Colonial presence created, either directly or indirectly, among the French or the Arab population. But they became 'nationalistic', meaning that they sought to break completely with the Colonial power, only much later, when the guerilla warfare began in 1954. Focusing on the period between 1920 and 1954, and using archives and interviews, I will try to show today the essential role played by education, particularly by the 'Colonial system of education'. That system was a 'structuring machine' which irresistibly and lastingly contributed to reshaping society from top to bottom as well as the relationship between the two languages. And though the 1954 Revolution denied it, that structure is still alive and functioning today., Historical Social Research Vol. 33, No. 2 (2008): Special Issue: Elite Formation in the Other Europe (19th-20th Century) Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

This study addresses aspects of the drop out rate in Afghan schools and provides some practical recommendations [...]. Since 2002, Afghanistan has experienced a very rapid and large expansion of education facilities. Millions of children have been given access to schools and, although the quantity aspect is continuously significant, however, [...] it is increasingly important to give more attention to the quality of education. Enrollment in schools is only part of the picture, while completion of a cycle (mainly at primary level) is a minimum requirement of quality education. Drop out, i.e. children who leave schools before completion of a school cycle is a common phenomenon in Afghan schools, which is visible in the school statistics. However, very little is known about the nature, scope and causes of the phenomenon. Needless to say, any intervention aiming at minimizing the drop out rates requires knowledge and insight of the causes and consequences of the occurrence itself. This study, which gives some answers, hopefully constitutes the beginning of a wider and more in depth research on this problem. In short, according to the study, the 7-8 percent yearly drop out rate at primary level and higher retention rate of girls are promising findings, while the high drop out rate in the lower primary grades and the high failure rate after grade 3 are alarming indicators. (DIPF/Orig.)