Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

112 ENGAGING YOUNG PEOPLE?7.2.2 LCA SCHOOL LEAVERS AND LONGER RISK OFUNEMPLOYMENTRather than confining attention to employment status one year after leavingschool, the following considers the extent to which school leavers haveever been unemployed during the early post-school period (16-24 monthspost-school leaving). Figure 7.5 displays wide variation across educationalgroups, with LCA school leavers performing less well than their LeavingCertificate counterparts, regardless of performance in the LeavingCertificate examination. While over one-third of the Junior Certificategroup experience unemployment, three-in-ten of the LCA leavers similarlyexperience at least one spell of unemployment during this early post-schoolperiod. Unemployment incidence falls to 26 per cent among those in thelowest performing group, 21 per cent among those in the medium-lowgroup, 18 per cent among the medium-high group and 11 per cent amongschool leavers performing at the highest levels in the LCE/LCVP.Figure 7.5: Proportion of School Leavers Who Have Ever Been UnemployedSince Leaving School (Labour Market Entrants Only)%454035302520151050Low Medium-Low Medium-High HighNo Quals Junior Cert LCA LCE/LCVP LCE/LCVP LCE/LCVP LCE/LCVPSource: School Leavers' Surveys 2002-2007.When we examine the risks of experience of unemployment acrossschool leavers, controlling for their social background characteristics, wecan see that LCA school leavers are somewhat disadvantaged relative totheir Leaving Certificate counterparts.The multivariate models developed in Table 7.1 and Table 7.2 allow anunambiguous comparison to be made in the unemployment risk amongLCA students relative to other school leavers. The models estimate therelative influence of gender, parental social class, and level of educationachieved at second-level education on the likelihood that a school leaverexperiences unemployment in the sixteen months after leaving school.Model 1 of Table 7.1 indicates that when accounting for gender andparental social class, males are more likely to experience unemploymentthan females. Furthermore, while the vast majority of social groups are lesslikely to be unemployed relative to the semi and unskilled manual group,students whose parents are unemployed are more likely to experienceunemployment in the period since leaving school. Model 2 of Table 7.1then considers the level of education achieved at second-level education.The regression coefficients tell us that school leavers who have left schoolearly or with a LCA qualification are more likely to experienceunemployment than those who have completed either the LCE or LCVP.