LSC South East - lsc.gov.uk - Learning and Skills Council

could explain part of the growth, with falling unemployment after 1993 offsetting the
positive effects on participation of increasing examination success (at GCSE level).
The perception of generally increasing economic returns to education is also likely
to encourage participation (see our literature review above) and it is perhaps
surprising that the participation rate has stagnated.
To obtain a more nuanced picture of the recent trends in participation we examine
briefly the data at education authority level across the whole of England. For this we
use data from the DCSF/DIUS website
(http://www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000734/index.shtml). We will look at
the full-time, part-time and WBL participation rates but we start off with the total
participation rate, aggregating all three of these categories. We examine the data
from 1998 to 2005 (for which the data are complete and consistent).
4.4 The total participation rate
We begin by looking at 16 year old students. The overall participation rate rises
only slightly, from 83.5% to 86.0%, over the seven years. The distribution across
authorities tells an interesting and not unexpected story: the distribution is
squeezed from below as the poorer performers catch up and, of course, the rate is
limited above by 100%.
Figure 7: Distribution of growth rates of participation by 16 year olds, English
education authorities, 1998 and 2005
(a) 1998
Density
Density
0 .02
0
.02 .04 .04 .06 .06 .08
(b) 2005
60
60
70
70
80
tt16_98
80
tt16_98
90
90
100
100
16