Teenagers are to be given greater flexibility in their education, as the government outlines plans to encourage the majority of youngsters to stay on in school or college beyond 16.

The Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, said the proposals were a "radical agenda that challenged long-held educational traditions".

BBC News Online outlines the core changes laid out in the Green Paper.

• Encourage almost all young people to stay in education and training until they are 19 years old.

• Develop a flexible combination of academic and vocational options so that young people can find courses that are relevant to their aptitudes.

• At 14, pupils will be able to drop academic subjects such as geography and modern foreign languages and will be able to take up vocational options such as tourism and manufacturing.

  However, all pupils will have to study maths, English, science and information and communication technology.

• The most able pupils will be allowed to bypass GCSE exams and move straight on to AS-levels.

• A new "Distinction" grade will be introduced as the highest award at A-level (both vocational and academic) to challenge and acknowledge the highest achievers.

• A Matriculation Diploma will be introduced at age 19, which will be an "overarching" award which can include vocational and academic subjects.

• The government wants a "parity of status" between vocational and academic courses.

While not part of the Green Paper on post-14 education reform, the government has also announced plans to make the learning of foreign languages compulsory in primary schools.

It has set a target for an entitlement to language lessons for every child from the age of seven upwards by 2010.