Education charity claims students should sit their GCSEs earlier so they can better plan their academic route to employment
Pupils should take GCSEs at 14 and then choose between a range of academic, vocational or technical training routes that would give them a better chance of a good job, according to a report by educationalists.
The study, published by the education charity the Sutton Trust today, said if the options were attractive and useful for securing a job in their chosen field, young people would be happy to stay on in education and training.
It would also benefit the economy by ensuring there were enough people with the skills to work in industries such as engineering and pharmaceuticals, said one of the report's authors, Professor Alan Smithers.
He and Dr Pamela Robinson, both from the University of Buckingham, compared education systems in the OECD countries and concluded that upper secondary education in the UK lacked "both the clear shape and widespread appeal" of that in other nations.
The coalition government plans to make it compulsory to stay in education or training up to the age of 18. But Smithers said under the current system, those who did not want to study for A-levels were left too little time after taking their GCSEs at 16 to try more vocational routes.
"If the government wished, it could make education [to] 18 a reality by moving and adapting GCSEs to become the national examination for 14-year-olds," the report said.
"This would then become the natural starting point for an array of awards taking young people in different directions.
"If these were sufficiently attractive, young people would want to stay on for as long as it took to gain a qualification and there would be no need for the sticks necessary to impose compulsory staying-on."
It added: "The government has already committed itself to raising the participation to age 18, but it should rethink. Allowing free choice of courses is an important means of ensuring the quality of what is on offer."
A more likely leaving age if GCSEs were taken at 14 would be 17, Smithers suggested. Some pupils might study courses split between school and work environments, but they would not be trapped in the study route they had chosen and could still switch courses.
"Young people's futures are determined almost by default at 14 when they decide what GCSEs or diplomas they're going to take," Smithers said. "What's available to them depends on the school they're at. It's all a bit untidy and unfair. There really needs to be a clear shape to that education.
"It's not giving young people the chances they deserve to develop skills. At the moment academic qualifications open doors, but the vocational ones don't."
He added: "We're crucially deficient compared to other countries in technical training. There are many complaints from employers saying they can't find well-trained, motivated technicians."
There is already some upper secondary provision that starts at 14, including the new vocational diploma. The "technical schools" being promoted by former education secretary, Kenneth Baker, which are supported by the government, also begin at 14.