THE number of Scottish school leavers gaining at least one Higher has risen to the highest level on record, new figures show.
Nearly 56% of pupils left school with one or more Highers or Advanced Highers in 2011/12, compared with 52.5% the previous year.
Meanwhile, the number of young people staying in employment, training or education after leaving school has also increased to record levels.
Of those who left school in 2012, 89.5% were recorded as remaining in employment, training or education as of March 2013, compared with 87% the previous year. Angela Constance, the Youth Employment Minister, said the increase was "great news" for Scotland's economy, employers and young people.
"More have gone into training and further and higher education, demonstrating that the need to give themselves the best possible chance of being work-ready is understood better than ever, especially as the difficult economic climate continues," she said.
"Following considerable efforts by the Scottish Government and its public, private and third sector partners, we are also seeing a series of very positive job figures showing that our work to support young people into employment is paying off."
The figures show a further 23.9% of leavers are employed, while 8.2% are unemployed and seeking work.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article