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School-based programs are an attempt to focus on prevention rather than remediation. The principal source of labour market preparation for young people remains the school system. Young people with more education do better than those with less. Those who drop out without a high school diploma have seen their relative position in the labour market worsen considerably over the past couple of decades. Therefore, the most effective of the strategies reviewed here are built around keeping young people in school. In addition, using the mainstream education system as much as possible is more efficient than building alternative program delivery infrastructures to deal with youth after they drop out.

School-based programs aim at keeping students in school, and they try to build bridges to the work world while young people are still in school, particularly for those who are not destined for post-secondary education.

In general, two broad approaches have been used:

• efforts to raise the high school graduation rate, by helping students with poor academic performance and providing alternative curricula (particularly with a labour market focus); and

• efforts to provide work experience to students to improve their transitions to work when they leave school.

1. Help with Academic Performance

Poor academic performance has frequently been found to be a predictor of those who are at risk of dropping-out (although it is usually symptomatic of other underlying problems). Programs that help poor-performing at-risk students have been shown to be effective in raising the graduation rate for this group.

Several approaches, with a variety of features, have been used to help students raise their level of academic performance, and many of them have had positive effects on high school graduation rates. However, results have varied considerably among sites. In general, programs that are designed to provide on-going help during the school year – including adult and peer mentoring, help with homework, and offering small stipends for successful participation in school-based programs, sometimes provided in the form of credits that can be used later for post-secondary tuition – have been particularly successful in increasing the graduation rate among disadvantaged youth.

On the other hand, programs that provide remedial academic assistance during the summer have produced short-term gains in terms of helping disadvantaged students keep up and avoid summer learning loss, but they have not had much impact on their graduation rates and on their subsequent employment.

2. Alternative Work-Oriented Curricula

Implementing alternative, labour-market-focused curricula has produced mixed results. These programs have tended to be targeted on disadvantaged and other at-risk populations. They aim to increase student retention by demonstrating the relevance of high school education, particularly to those who may not be destined for post-secondary education or who may wish to continue with a trade or vocational program after high school.

There are no rigorous Canadian studies of the impacts of this approach. Much of the discussion is simply a debate between the proponents of "contextualised" learning and those who ascribe little value to "alternative" curriculum elements based on work experience. In the US, there is some evidence that alternative curricula can lead to improved attendance and better grades, but success in raising high school graduation rates has varied considerably from program to program and, within a program, by geographic location. The inclusion of work elements can either reinforce the value of schooling or it can reinforce the notion of work as a substitute for school. The American evidence also suggests that these approaches are more successful with young women; while among young men, particularly blacks, the involvement in work-related activities may actually increase their likelihood of dropping-out of high school to work full-time if a job becomes available.

3. School-to-work Transition Programs

In Canada, experience is based on specific transition programs, usually small in scale compared to the mainstream school programs alongside of which they operate, and usually targeted on a specific student population (typically at-risk or under-achieving students).

In Europe, there are many more examples of how basic education and vocational preparation can be combined in the education system. Two broad approaches are exemplified by the dual system in Germany, in which young people are streamed at an early age into enterprise-based vocational training operated in conjunction with and integral to their basic schooling, and by the National Vocational Qualifications approach in the UK, whereby the private sector establishes, within a framework set by government, a series of competency standards for each occupation, but where it is left up to the individual to decide how they want to go about acquiring the skills necessary for occupational entry (e.g., in school, through on-the-job training, from private training providers).

It is important to recognise that national education and training systems reflect the broader institutional environment within which they operate. Consequently, approaches used in one country may not be readily transferable to another. In addition, elements of alternative systems, such as the development and maintenance of a comprehensive set of national competency standards, the accreditation of training institutions, and the testing of competencies, can be quite costly.

Canadian transition programs aim at developing stronger connections between schools and the workplace. The most common examples are cooperative education programs and in-school apprenticeship programs. The evidence suggests that the effectiveness of such programs, at both the secondary and post-secondary levels, in significantly affecting the employment and earnings of graduates depends on the quality of the job experiences that are provided. The key is to provide young people with experiences which will be valued in the full-time labour market. In particular, there is no substitute for actual paid work experience in the private sector.

Programs that link school and work experience face significant barriers to expansion. Many educators in North America downplay the role of the education system in providing vocational preparation and, consequently, they are reluctant to develop opportunities for and to give academic credit for work experience. Also, the number of work experience places offered by employers is quite limited.

In addition, the results of these programs have been mixed. There is some evidence that cooperative education leads to improved employment outcomes for those in post-secondary education. But the evaluation results on the (albeit more limited) experience with cooperative education in high schools suggests that co-op programs may have impacts on employment. Longer term impacts are presently unknown for high school students. Additional research needs to be undertaken to explore long term impacts, particularly for high school students who pursue vocational or apprenticeship training.

An alternative approach to providing students with work experience is to improve their access to summer jobs. Evaluation results suggest that summer jobs can increase the number of disadvantaged young people who obtain employment. Summer employment, however, also often attract youth who would have found jobs anyway. However, while there is general evidence that work experience is an important determinant of later employment success, it is unknown at present whether summer jobs have any impact on the academic achievement or subsequent employment experiences of participants.

Finally, Evaluation shows that placement services that are set up to cater specifically to the needs of students (e.g., Human Resources Centres (HRCC) for Students or HRCCs on Campus) are not any more effective (nor any less effective) than regular HRCC services in helping students find jobs, or in reducing the time they take to find jobs, or improving the kinds of jobs and earnings they obtain.