At home, plenty leave at fourteen or so without having taken any examinations, especially if there is somewhere in particular they want to apprentice or if their families need the money. Some girls leave to be married. My father insisted I stay for the Certificate but didn't mind whether I carried on after that.
Not that it matters now. I spent the better part of a year at an Institute of Magecraft in the other place, but there doesn't seem to be any such thing in this town.