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Most students who leave school at 15 do so because they don’t have a good reason to stay, according to Mr Simpson. He hopes the Education Amendment Act 2009, which requires a young person to complete Year 10 and to then continue in either education or training, full-time paid employment, or a combination of education, training and employment until 17, will encourage students to complete their schooling.

“The new legislation now provides some support to what principals and schools try to achieve with every student already,” he said.

“We have been striving to get every student to complete their School Certificate as a minimum and then we encourage all to return to school to do their HSC.”

How effective this will be is yet to be seen, according to Mr Simpson. However, he says it “can’t hurt” the process of trying to convince a student to stay at school.

“It also provides a real alternative for those who cannot get a job or do not get into TAFE - previously they would stay at home and go on social benefits, but now they must return to school (and get their benefit),” he said.

Mr Simpson estimates between five and eight per cent of his students will be affected by the changes. He says the impact on other students would be kept to a minimum because they would study different subjects to those who “have to be there.”

“We have a strong vocational education offering many content-endorsed courses (those with no HSC exam and no ATAR mark) and we expect that these are the type of subjects that will be studied by those that return to school only because they do not have a better option,” he said. “Therefore, the main impact will be on class sizes in these types of subjects.”

Mr Simpson thought perhaps high schools would see academic students abandon vocational subjects because of the type of student studying them.

“We would have about four students leave school in Year Nine and about six in Year 10 before they get their School Certificate - probably about 10 in a group of 130,” he said.

“They now must stay at school and get their HSC as a minimum. Of these 10, half will struggle to meet the requirements and half are certainly capable but have left school for other reasons - pregnancy, family breakdown, mental health, substance abuse, unsupportive parents. Only one or two would have a job to go to, so the legislation is very good for the majority.”