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The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of local labour market conditions and pupil educational attainment as primary determinants of the post-compulsory schooling decision.

Through the specification of a nested logit model, the restrictive independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) assumption inherent in the multinomial logit (MNL) model is relaxed across multiple unordered outcomes.

The analysis shows that the factors influencing schooling decisions differ for males and females. For females, on average, the key drivers of the schooling decision are expected wage returns based on youth educational attainment, attitudes to school and parental aspirations, rather than local labour market conditions. For males, higher local unemployment rates encourage greater investment in education.

The contribution of this paper to the existing literature is threefold. First, a nested logit model is proposed as an alternative to a MNL. The former can formally incorporate the structured and sequential decision-making process that youths may engage with in relation to the post-compulsory schooling decision, as well as relaxing the restrictive IIA assumption inherent in the MNL across multiple unordered outcomes, an issue the authors discuss in more detail in the Methodology section below. Second, the analysis is based on extremely rich socio-economic data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, matched to local labour market data and administrative data from the National Pupil Database and Pupil Level Annual School Census, which provide a broad set of unusually high-quality measures of prior attainment. The authors argue that such high-quality data and an appropriate model specification allows identification of the determinants of the post-compulsory decision in a more detailed manner than many previous analyses. Third, the data have the scale necessary to consider whether the determinants of post-compulsory schooling decisions vary by gender, a particularly important issue given the differential education participation rates of males and females (e.g. in this cohort, females are about 10 percentage points more likely to go on to higher education in the UK than males), and the gendered choices of occupation (see, e.g. Bertrand, 2011). The work will, therefore, provide recent empirical evidence from England on gender differences in the determinants of education choices.

Although China has instituted compulsory education through Grade 9, it is still unclear whether students are, in fact, staying in school. In this paper, the authors use a multi-year (2003–2011) longitudinal survey data set on rural households in 102–130 villages across 30 provinces in China to examine the extent to which students still drop out of school prior to finishing compulsory education.

To examine the correlates of dropping out, the study uses ordinary least squares and multivariate probit models.

Dropout rate from junior high school was still high (14%) in 2011, even though it fell across the study period. There was heterogeneity in the measured dropout rate. There was great variation among different regions, and especially among different villages. In all, 10% of the sample villages showed extremely high rates during the study period and actually rose over time. Household characteristics associated with poverty and the opportunity cost of staying in school were significantly and negatively correlated with the completion of nine years of schooling.

The findings of this study suggest that China needs to take additional steps to overcome the barriers keeping children from completing nine years of schooling if they hope to either achieve their goal of having all children complete nine years of school or extend compulsory schooling to the end of twelfth grade.

The authors seek to measure the prevalence of both compulsory education rates of dropouts and rates of completion in China. The study examines the correlates of dropping out at the lower secondary schooling level as a way of understanding what types of students (from what types of villages) are not complying with national schooling regulations. To overcome the methodological shortcomings of previous research on dropout in China, the study uses a nationally representative, longitudinal data set based on household surveys collected between 2003 and 2011.

Until recently in Sweden there were seven years of compulsory schooling, commencing at the age of six, with opportunities for a voluntary additional year. There was also a somewhat complicated system of voluntary secondary education in general, technical or commercial gymnasia. As long ago as 1948 a special committee made recommendations for reform and 1949 saw the introduction of experimental nine‐year schools in various parts of the country. By 1962 these had been so widely established that half the children of Sweden were attending them. In the latter year a new education act made nine years of education compulsory for all children from the age of six and, on the basis of what had been learned in 14 years from the experimental schools, established a new school structure. The compulsory school is sometimes referred to in English writings as the comprehensive school, but since it is both primary and lower secondary it is better called by its Swedish name, the ground school (grundskolan). Extension of compulsory schooling is being introduced gradually and will not be completely established until the academic year 1972–73. A simplified system of gymnasium (higher secondary school) education is also being introduced. The extension and reorganization of compulsory education is partly an attempt to provide a firmer foundation for further education and to make possible a reorganization of the latter. The ground school, therefore, is divided into three departments, each covering three years of school life. In the lower department the foundations of learning are laid, with basic studies in Swedish, arithmetic, religion, local history, music and gymnastics, with handicraft introduced in the third year. In the middle department English is commenced, as being an accepted lingua franca, essential to a small nation if commerce and industry are to be developed. Boys and girls alike receive tuition in textiles, woodwork, and metalwork, with domestic science in the sixth year.

Aims to consider whether the expansion of post‐compulsory education has led to greater benefits for members of one socio‐economic group than another.

Uses a multinomial logit model of the choice of first destination, using the Youth Cohort Survey data for England and Wales, from 1985 to 1992.

Whilst prior attainment has the strongest influence on selecting academic further education, participation rates into post‐compulsory education have also increased for young people of average ability. Interaction effects clearly show that for even the most able, the socio‐economic status of parents is an important influence on the choice of destination. The greatest benefit from the increased provision of post‐compulsory education after conditioning for ability has been to young people from high socio‐economic groups.

Provides analysis, following investigation, of the main transmission mechanisms that determine choice at age 16.

The paper aims to argue that there has been a privileging of the private (social mobility) and economic (social efficiency) purposes of schooling at the expense of the public (democratic equality) purposes of schooling.

The paper employs a literature review, policy and document analysis.

Since the late 1980s, the schooling agenda in Australia has been narrowed to one that gives primacy to purposes of schooling that highlight economic orientations (social efficiency) and private purposes (social mobility).

The findings have wider relevance beyond Australia, as similar policy agendas are evident in many other countries raising the question as to how the shift in purposes of education in those countries might mirror those in Australia.

While earlier writers have examined schooling policies in Australia and noted the implications of managerialism in relation to these policies, no study has analysed these policies from the perspective of the purposes of schooling. Conceptualising schooling, and its purposes in particular, in this way refocuses attention on how societies use their educational systems to promote (or otherwise) the public good.

This monograph is on developments and trends in vocational education and training in Europe. An overview is given of what is being planned in Western Europe. This is illustrated by a detailed description of the educational systems of a selection of EC and non‐EC countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Sweden and Switzerland), followed by discussion of the current provision for vocational education and training within those systems and also in commerce and industry. Also provided are additional information on the work of CEDEFOP and of the European Commission, further reading, useful addresses and a glossary of some European language vocational education terms.

The paper aims to test whether a firm's provision of training depends on the intake quality of trainees. While a firm may just treat each trainee equally, independent of his or her intake quality, firms may alternatively also provide more training to less able individuals or focus on the most able ones. The authors develop a theoretical framework that illustrates under what circumstances a firm chooses a particular training strategy.

The paper uses representative administrative survey data for more than 1,400 Swiss establishments. To test their theoretical predictions about a firm's training strategy, the authors apply multivariate and instrumental variable (IV) regression models. In addition, they use case study evidence from a large Swiss retailer, allowing them to analyze how different instructors in a specific firm react when confronted with apprentices of different intake qualities.

The authors find that a firm's training strategy depends on a trainee's intake quality and the expected net costs of a particular training occupation. Although firms generally provide less training to less qualified trainees, the authors find that a firm is willing to compensate low‐ability trainees with additional training when training is on average profitable in the short run.

When training regulations force firms to follow an investment‐oriented training strategy (net costs in the short run), then low‐ability trainees will not receive additional instruction time and the dropout risk increases.

Generating a regulatory framework that allows firms to achieve a net benefit from work‐based training is crucial for low‐ability trainees to have the opportunity to receive additional training investments that compensate for a lack of competences when training commences.

This paper provides novel and direct empirical evidence on how firms adjust their training provision when faced with heterogeneity in the ability of their trainees.

The aim of this article is to detail the day to day experience of the Junior Cadet component of the Australian scheme of universal military service from 1911‐31. Its focus, therefore, is on describing the administrative and practical functioning of the Junior Cadet system. It does not, for example, seek to address issues such as the social or psychological impact of the scheme or its long‐term effects on the development of education in Australia. Nor does it explore questions of how or why the system evolved as it did. Such matters have been the subject of past, and will no doubt be the focus of future research. As space precludes an in depth investigation of all aspects of the practical conduct of the Junior Cadet scheme, a number of important themes will therefore be traced that, taken together, provide a reasonably full picture of how the system functioned. Beginning with its origins, the article traces the evolution of its purpose, organisation/structure, teacher‐officer instructional staff, training activities, and the eventual dismantling of the scheme. Building on the practice of military‐styled ‘drill’ in many colonial schools prior to Federation, and embedded in the wider theory and practice of universal military service, this scheme was (and remains) a unique experiment in the history of Australian education.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of sheepskin effects in the return to education in Japan.

The paper provides a short description of the Japanese schooling and recruitment system. It then describes the data set and the empirical approach. Estimation results are presented for the various specifications. The baseline specification closely follows existing studies for the USA to facilitate comparability across the two countries. The paper further investigates whether there are significant firm‐size differences in the estimated sheepskin effects and whether sheepskin effects disappear with increasing job tenure.

The estimation results indicate that sheepskin effects explain about 50 percent of the total returns to schooling. The paper further finds that education as a signal is only important for workers in small firms with the size of these effects being similar to comparable estimates for the USA. Finally, the estimated degree effects decrease with firm tenure, in particular for small firms. These results could be explained by the particular recruitment system of large firms in Japan, which makes university diploma as a screening device unimportant for large firms and the admission policy of Japanese universities.

By investigating the role of sheepskin effects in a labor market that differs substantially from the labor market in the USA, the paper provides additional insights to the human capital theory‐screening hypothesis debate.

Education is highly regarded as having a central influence on individuals' understanding and backing of democracy, but whether this occurs in young and small democratic states remain unknown. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether schooling and education have a positive impact on an individual's democratic values in Fiji, whose democratic system has been subject to three coups since independence in 1970.

To achieve the goal of this paper, the ordered probit probability model is used. The ordered probit model serves as a better framework for statistical analysis whenever field survey responses are ordinal as distinct from numerical.

The results from an ordered probit model reveal that the education level does not affect an individual's democratic values. However, it is found that gender, age, and ethnicity do have an influence on individuals' endorsement of democracy.

Democracy has more than once proved to be an elusive dream in Fiji. This paper aims to provide the answer whether education can be the facilitating factor in transition towards a more democratic state.

This is the first study which comprehensively explores whether schooling and education has a positive impact on an individual's democratic values in Fiji.