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The skills young people develop in school provide an essential foundation that can either be reinforced or deteriorate depending on the strength of the foundation and opportunities after leaving school. This brief, Skill Retention After School Leaving describes findings from an analysis of a longitudinal dataset of Malawian adolescents aged 14–17 attending school when first interviewed in 2007. The survey investigates whether literacy and numeracy skills at school-leaving (among those who dropped out before completing secondary school) were retained several years after.