HNC/HND vs High School?

remorseless

morning all,

I need some advice to understand what would be better for a youngster that has missed few years too many of high school and best next course of action.

He has completed the 2nd year of high school and he can either continue high school for 3 more years or complete a HNC in 1 year and then progress to HND for an extra 1 year entering as a mature student.

He has no intention to become academic, etc so he would complete a business oriented HNC/HND and work in that field.
The high school he is attending is not the best (he has good grades but curriculum is a bit behind).
Mentally, he is able/equipped to complete the HNC/HND course.

So the question is, if he gets to 20/21 etc with a HNC/HND but no formal high school degree - do you think it would be a big mistake and why?
He would like to start working as soon as possible and drop out from edu all together rather than continuing the High School.

Thank you!

Robin9

I did what was then A levels and went onto do HND

My maths was far superior than those who came via HNC but my practical workshop skills were much poorer

Went on to do BBC and a BA and a good career.

Andypandyboy

He will need Maths and English at a C or above to be sucessful on an HND. I assume you are in the UK?

remorseless

He has English and math at c level so he'd qualify to start a HNC. He's in the UK now but from EU with an academic English...

The question is really would it better to follow formal curriculum through high school or given the age jump to HNC even though more demanding.

Would employers care about the path followed our just the latest grades achieved?

missbiggles1

HNC is equivalent to the first year of a degree, HND is equivalent to the first two years. In the future, if he wanted, he could "top up" the HND to a degree by an additional year's study.

However, if he should want to study a totally different degree in the future, he'd only get funding for two years rather than the full three.

GlasweJen

My college wanted 3 highers to get onto their HNC course (biomedical science). It was a fairly intense course and when i went to uni I coasted through the first part of second year as I'd already covered most of it in my HNC. I am fairly academic though and only did the HNC as I couldn't work out if I wanted to do science or languages.