Tackling the crisis facing young people: building ‘high opportunity progression eco-systems’

There is international concern about high levels of youth unemployment and an urgent cross-national debate about how to facilitate young people’s transition from education to working life. In England young people are facing a crisis of opportunity in terms of employment that is currently affecting 18–25 year olds, but has the potential to undermine 14–19 year olds’ participation, progression and transition into further/higher study or the workplace. This is at a time when the government intends to raise the age of participation to 18 by 2015. We identify a range of factors that affect both the decisions and actions of young people and those working with them and propose a multi-level ecological model to aid understanding and positive intervention. At the heart of this model lies the ‘local learning ecology’ (LLE), which we argue can take on a different form depending on the mediating actions of education professionals and other social actors at the local level. We describe the features of two ideal types of 14+ LLE—‘low opportunity progression equilibria’ and ‘high opportunity progression eco-systems’—with the latter more likely to benefit all young people in a locality. We conclude by suggesting that the ecological model has the potential to be adapted for other public, private or third sector areas of activity.