In England, your leaving age depends on when you were born. All students must stay in compulsory education until their 18th birthday if you were born on or after 1 September 1997. This was only raised from 16 recently in 2013, and proposed to come into effect by 2015.

When someone is 16 they are old enough to make their own decisions, for example give consent for medical, dental, or surgical treatment, have sex, move out and live alone and even get married. Therefore if the law believes that at 16 years old you are responsible enough to do all those things previously mentioned, they should also have the right to decide whether to stay in education or go out into the world of work.