Visit the NEETS, before they visit you

Even before the current economic downturn there was evidence that the numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEETS) was on the increase http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/5188075/Number-of-young-people-not-in-work-or-education-hits-record-high.html this represents a significant section of society and it must be worrying that they have stood apart from mainstream society during one of the most prolonged periods of economic prosperity and opportunity of the last 50 years. They seem to represent a long tail of failure and rejection, in this context, I thought it might be appropriate to mention the late Jade Goody who seemed to have gained so little from her educational career and yet apparently valued education so highly http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6011978 this article refers to a table which is unavailable here which shows the percentage of 19 year-olds who have no educational qualifications in the UK. Its absence is no great loss, as it's a very simple table; it reads 8 percent for every year of the last 12 years. We seem to have a sizable section of the population who have apparently gained little or nothing from the existing social offer. Yet, if the publicity is to be believed, education was at the end of her life Jade Goody's highest priority. Maybe there's hope in that, might it yet be possible to engage the apparently totally disengaged, the ill-educated, the NEETS, the marginal: its at least 1 in 12 of the population.