92.8% of school leavers in Scotland in "positive destinations"

Scotland has published its statistics for follow-up leaver destinations’ for 2022-23 school leavers.

It found that among 2022-23 school leavers, 92.8% were in a positive follow-up destination, including higher education, further education, employment, training, personal skills development and voluntary work. This is down from 93.5% of 2021-22 school leavers, however, over the longer term it has increased from 85.9% in 2009-10.

The decrease compared to 2021-22 has been caused by reductions in the proportions of school leavers in higher education and employment.

Higher education remains the most common destination despite a drop from 37.7% in 2021-22 to 37.1% for 2022-23 school leavers - the lowest level since 2014-15.

The proportion in employment decreased from 31.8% in 2021-22 to 31.2% in 2022-23 but remains higher than at any point prior to 2020-21.

Meanwhile, the proportion in further education increased from 20.7% in 2021-22 to 21.2% in 2022-23 but remains lower than at any point prior to 2020-21.

The gap between the proportion of school leavers from the most and least deprived communities in positive follow-up destinations increased to 7.5 percentage points although this remains one of the narrowest gaps on record, only wider than in 2021-22 (7.0 percentage points).

In 2022-23, as in other years, S6 leavers were the most likely to be in a positive follow-up destination (96.1%) and S4 leavers were the least likely (85.7%). For S5 leavers the figure was 89.9%.