Despite all efforts and strategies described in the previous chapters, educational underachievement remains problematic at all levels of educational systems, with many young people leaving full-time education with little or no formal qualifications. Children from socially excluded backgrounds tend to be overrepresented among this category of pupils. There are provisions for young people and adults in most countries that, in principle, can be taken advantage of to obtain educational qualifications at a later stage. Although these provisions have been developed with different goals in mind and for different groups, many of them are intended to provide a ‘second chance’ for people who did not achieve the necessary qualifications during full-time education. However, a discussion of all forms of second-chance provision is beyond the scope of the current study. Instead, we focus specifically on provisions for young people ‘at risk’; that is, young people who did not achieve the necessary qualifications during compulsory education and/or in the transition from school to work. In the Dutch context, this group is referred to as those who lack a ‘starting qualification’ to achieve integration into the labour market. This term is used throughout the remainder of the chapter.

Research has shown that the general economic situation and associated labour market conditions have very important consequences for young people at the stage of transition to the labour market. This can be illustrated by recent developments in the debate concerning ‘over-education’. Due to the surplus of school leavers with academic qualifications, many low- or semi-skilled youngsters have been having considerable problems entering the labour market. During this period, youth unemployment has become an important issue for labour market policy. At the present time, however, huge labour shortages are being experienced in various sectors of the economy and at different levels of qualification. The labour market has demonstrated its flexibility and capacity to absorb young school leavers with low levels of qualifications. In such a situation, formal educational qualifications appear less influential than more general characteristics such as ‘social capital’. In the present situation (at least in the Netherlands), there is less a problem of mass youth unemployment than a problem for certain categories of young people that are not seen as ‘adapted’ for a position in the formal labour market.