BLAENAU Gwent has the joint highest percentage of children leaving full-time education without a qualification in Wales, along with Cardiff.

It is the third damning statistic to be released about the county’s education department, which is in special measures, this month after it emerged that just four out of every 10 Blaenau Gwent GCSE pupils gained five A* to C grades last year, including English or Welsh and maths.

The county was also one of the worst performing in Wales for education at foundation phase, key stage 2 and key stage 3, according to provisional figures which went before Newport councillors.

In 2012-13, out of 720 GCSE-aged pupils in Blaenau Gwent, 20 were reported as not achieving a recognised qualification and of those, five (0.7 per cent) left full-time education without a recognised qualification, twice the national average.

According to statistics published by the Welsh Government yesterday, in Caerphilly, out of 2,280 students, 30 were reported as not achieving a recognised qualification and of those, nine (0.4 per cent) left the system without a qualification.

In Torfaen’s of 1,405 pupils, 11 did not achieve a qualification and two left full-time education (0.1 per cent) without a qualification, below the national average.

In Monmouthshire out of 918 GCSE-age pupils, six did not achieve a qualification and four left full-time education (0.4 per cent) without one, while in Newport, of 1,787 pupils, 28 didn’t achieve a recognised qualification and 11 left the system (0.6 per cent) without one.