THOUSANDS of drop-out teenagers across the region will be threatened with £200 fines if they refuse to stay in school or training, under a learning revolution to be promised today.

A landmark Bill to raise the education leaving age from 16 to 18 will offer young people a choice of continuing their studies either in the classroom, or the workplace.

Anyone who refuses will be served with an "attendance order" which, if breached, will lead to a £50 spot fine - rising to about £200 if the case ends up in court.

In the Government's sights are more than 200,000 teenagers, aged 16 to 18, who have been dubbed Neets - Not in Education, Employment or Training.

The drop-outs included 11,420 across the North-East and North Yorkshire at the end of last year, a figure that has remained little changed under Labour.

The blackspots included County Durham with 2,050, Sunderland (1,320), Middlesbrough (880), Gateshead (750), Redcar and Cleveland (610) and Stockton (600).

The Neets rate in the North-East is twice that in the South-East, a legacy of the loss of traditional industries, such as coal mining and shipbuilding.

Now the Bill, to be included in today's Queen's Speech, will raise the compulsory education leaving age to 17 in 2013, and then to 18 in 2015.

Explaining the plan yesterday, Children's Secretary Ed Balls insisted the Government would not force reluctant teenagers to attend traditional classroom lessons until they are 18.

Instead, those young people who want to go straight into jobs will be able to work for up to four days a week and train or study for the remaining one day.

Mr Balls pledged to create an extra 90,000 apprenticeships. Alternatively, jobs allowing study towards accredited qualifications in English and maths will be allowed.

The Children's Secretary said Britain had one of the worst records in the industrialised world for 16-year-olds dropping out of education and training.

He said: "The days where many people could leave school at 16 without qualifications and work their way up into a fulfilling and rewarding career are behind us.

"If we don't act now to increase participation, it will be the most disadvantaged young people in our society who will be the losers."

Mr Balls - who said the new leaving age would also apply to teenage mothers - announced a package of support for 16 to 18-year-olds in advance of the law changing. These include:

* Extending education maintenance allowances (EMAs), worth up to £30 a week, to cover a wider range of courses;

* Allowing more young people to start courses in January, rather than waiting until the start of the next academic year, the following September;

* Allowing entry into the New Deal job training scheme when a person reaches their 18th birthday, rather than forcing them to wait a further six months.

But Conservative North-East MEP Martin Callanan, a former Gateshead borough councillor, said: "It is good for people to stay on at school, but they have to be incentivised to do so rather than being forced.

"If you force someone to stay on at school, and they do not want to, all that happens is that they disrupt the classroom for those that want to be there.

"I admire the aim, but forcing people isn't the right way."

Ross Smith, head of policy of the North-East Chamber of Commerce, gave a cautious welcome to the proposals, but said the education provided in the extra two years must be "high quality and valuable rather than two years of the same".

He said: "It is a regular concern of business, the difficulty in finding appropriately skilled employees, which goes right down to finding school leavers with the right level of basic skills for employment.''

Chris Roberts, regional director of the Learning and Skills Council, said: "The key point that we must get across is that this is not just about staying on in school, but about extending opportunities and making available the whole range of options for young people up to the age of 18, whether that's staying on in school, going to a college, taking up an apprenticeship, or going into a job with training.

"Our world is changing and we all need more skills than ever before." The Bill will be the first time the education leaving age has been raised since 1972, when students were first required to stay at school until 16.