Rural England
Educational attainment at age 16
Key points
- In 2006/07, 8% of 16-year olds in rural authorities attained fewer than 5 GCSEs and 2½% passed no GCSEs at all.
- Both of these proportions are slightly low than in non-rural authorities.
- See the UK indicator on GCSEs.
Graph 1: Low grades
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Rural/urban ratios (urban = 10)
On most poverty and social exclusion indicators, rural areas have 'better scores' than urban areas. The purpose of the table below is to differentiate between those subjects where rural areas are 'a bit better' and those where rural areas are 'a lot better'. It does so by presenting the rural statistics for the indicator as a proportion of the urban statistics. So, for example, a rural 'score' of 6 in the table below means that the rural statistic is around 60% of its urban equivalent.
| Type of authority | No passes | 1-4 passes |
|---|---|---|
| 'Mostly rural' authorities | 8 | 8 |
Definitions and data sources
The indicator
The graph shows the proportion of 16-year-olds failing to pass any GCSEs plus those with some GCSEs but fewer than 5.
The data is for 2006/07. Rural-urban designations are based on the location of schools not the home address of pupils.
Level of the data
Upper tier local authorities. Both the classification rules and their results by local authority can be found on the page on rural/urban classification systems. Note that there is no official government rural/urban classification system for upper tier local authorities but that the one used here has been designed to be consistent with the DEFRA 2005 classification system for lower tier local authorities.
Source
Department for Children, Schools and Families (formerly DfES) statistical publications.
The numbers
| Type of authority | No passes | 1-4 passes |
|---|---|---|
| 'Mostly rural' authorities | 2.3% | 5.6% |
| Other authorities | 2.7% | 6.7% |