overall students with lower performance in compulsory education go into vocational programmes but based on performance in compulsory education nonwestern immigrant students are more likely to choose to follow a general programme this suggests a comparatively weaker intake among immigrant students to vocational programmes and after five years of study dropout rates are very high for female immigrant students and for male immigrant students the strongest predictor of these dropout rates is previous performance in compulsory education l dding recent research has shown that employers screen potential apprentices according to grades and absenteeism in school students without significant behaviour and learning problems at school can find apprenticeship without difficulties in most sectors h st