The transition process from education to the labour market is therefore key and depends on a number of factors such as the overall status of the labour market, the wide range of training options available to youth, family background, social support and the quality of the labour market information available at the time of seeking employment (OECD, 2005). [...] In this report, the data used are from the first three cycles and pertain to the entire cohort, that is, youth between ages 18 and 20 in 1999 who participated in the survey and who were still participating in the survey in December 2003.1 Additional information about the survey is presented in Appendix A. Reader's note To lighten the text, tables and graphs, this report refers to dates of December [...] It is important for the reader to know that the statistics presented in this report are representative of individuals aged 18 to 20 who were residents of Canada in 2000 when the YITS interviews were conducted and were contacted again in the follow-up interviews of 2002 and 2004. [...] Over one quarter of high school dropouts manage to graduate One of the main objectives of the Youth in Transition Survey is to study the pathways of youth during a critical period in their life when they must make a number of choices that will affect their participation in the labour market and the development of their human capital. [...] One quarter of dropouts took advantage of the second chance system to pursue postsecondary education In analysing more closely the pathways of youth who dropped out in the first cycle of the survey, we see that nearly half of them took advantage of the second chance system to return to school at either the secondary or postsecondary level.