School performance and staying on: A micro analysis for Northern Ireland

Microeconomic survey data are used to investigate the impact of a number of measures of school performance on the chances of young people staying on i n full-time education. Multinomial legit models are estimated for the main destinations of young people in Northern Ireland at age 16, namely school, further education, employment, vocational training and unemployment. The an alysis is based on a sample which was stratified according to the choices m ade by young people. Since this stratification is endogenous, 'choice-based ' models are estimated to account for this. Some evidence is found of a sta tistically significant ceteris paribus relationship between school performa nce and staying on. This is interpreted in terms of aspects of school cultu re which are captured in the school performance indicators.