Who changed the definition of NEETS?

I have spent years monitoring NEETS - those not in education, employment or training.

First time round, we called it the Success Index and it was run in Coventry and Warwickshire and showed the first destination post-GCSEs for young people aged 16 or so in the sub-region.  It was published towards the end of the autumn term and was used as a measure of success in inspiring young people in the area. 

The original definition was that a young person had to be in education or training with work, and we used to have a lot of debate with Connexions about a job without training - due to really tricky semantics.  If a young person was on a training programme with Marks & Spencer or AXA, they often weren't counted as being in a positive destination as the training wasn't to a recognised qualification.  However the unqualified young man who was helping his Dad out as a scaffolder was a tricky one - should we grass them up to the HSE?

Then the concept of NEETS came up, so that whole debate was put on the back burner, as you could be in education, employment or training, and it was a positive outcome.  Then people started to get clever and think about what happened at the end of year 12, so ever more sophisticated methods for tracking young people were needed, and Connexions case workers were at the front of collecting the data.  Now when we just did the Success Index, we did find that people who went to public school for their sixth form education ended up as non-positive outcomes, as they were generally lost to the state careers system - is that the same for NEETs?

Today I find that there is a whole new category of NEET - actually we used to call them unemployed - young people aged 19 to 24 not in education, employment or training.  Here we get into seriously tricky water on definitions.  What about young mothers?  What about unpaid carers? What about unpaid postgraduate academics?  What about school leavers and graduates on gap years?  What about volunteers?  As one gets older, the range of options and life choices that are totally valid but don't sit comfortably within the categories of in employment or in education or in training get ever more numerous. 

Why call these people NEETs?  It takes the strength away from the 16 - 18 definition.  These people are unemployed or inactive.

Comments

[the defenders cbs]

Who changed the definition of NEETS? <-- The trend changes the definition I guess!

[free ipad]

Who changed the definition of NEETS?<-- interesting!

[MBA Dissertation]

it's good to see this information in your post, i was looking the same but there was not any proper resource, thanx now i have the link which i was looking for my research.

[Schüßler Salze]

Do you have a spam issue on this blog; I also am a blogger, and I was wanting to know your situation; many of us have created some nice practices and we are looking to exchange strategies with others, please shoot me an e-mail if interested.